The Kamala Harris Conspiracies Are Here
- by Wired
- Jul 11, 2024
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After President Joe
Biden’s disastrous debate, speculations that Vice President Kamala Harris may fill the void are everywhere. Today on WIRED Politics Lab, how the far right is already pushing racist and misogynistic conspiracies that question Harris’ ability to be president. Plus, why RFK Jr. is looking to capitalize on the moment.
Leah Feiger is @LeahFeiger. David Gilbert is @DaithaiGilbert. Vittoria Elliot is @telliotter. Write to us at politicslab@WIRED.com. Be sure to subscribe to the WIRED Politics Lab newsletter here.
Mentioned this week: Leah Feiger: Mm-hmm.
Vittoria Elliot: They see Elon as a bastion of free speech, and the day after the debate, his campaign dropped nearly $20,000 in a single day on ad buys on X, and that's the most they've spent on X in basically any ad buy since they've started last year.
Leah Feiger: Wow. David, I'm curious about your thoughts on this, especially on X, formerly Twitter. We've talked before about how X has totally transformed under Elon Musk's ownership. Less content moderation, more disinfo, declining user base, conspiracies for all. Why do you think Kennedy is putting in so much effort there, and why is he so successful there?
David Gilbert: I suppose it's because for Kennedy, what Elon Musk has created is a platform that is perfectly suited for him, where he is getting feedback from all of these blue check accounts who are worshipers of Elon Musk, but also will share many of the viewpoints that Kennedy holds. And I think it's the perfect place for him to receive the kind of feedback that Elon... The reason I think Elon Musk bought Twitter is because he wanted to kind of get validation from his people, and he does. When you see him post something, he gets this kind of echo chamber of people praising him and telling him how great he is. And that's, in a sense, what Kennedy gets too. He gets a lot of engagement from people who are just sharing his ideas and saying, as Tori mentioned, "Why aren't Democrats looking at RFK Jr. as a potential replacement for Biden, rather than Harris?" You said that's not going to happen, but from their point of view, this is the logical conclusion of what should happen.
Leah Feiger: And all of this is also happening where this actually shouldn't be that good of a week or a moment for RFK Jr. I mean, there was that bombastic article from Vanity Fair that went everywhere about really serious allegations of sexual assault, the photo of him allegedly eating a dog. It should not have been that good for the campaign, but he's obviously been able to really capitalize on this moment. Trump has been staying a little bit more quiet, kind of letting Biden and the Democrats eat each other alive, and Biden has his own thing going on, and RFK is like, "I'm going to make a TikTok, and hopefully, you're going to all forget about my controversies." And it kind of appears to be working for him. I mean, the polls have him doing decently.
Vittoria Elliot: I think the other thing is that because both of the candidates have stayed really quiet, it's, again, created a vacuum for people that want to engage in these conversations, and he's willing to go wherever that conversation is.
Leah Feiger: Mm-hmm.
Vittoria Elliot: And I think our colleague Makena covered his TikTok town hall right before the debate, and I spoke to one of the people who participated in that and the woman who organized it. And what she said to me was that of the candidates, because she's done TikTok town halls with every third party candidate, with Jill Stein, with Chase Oliver, and she said they have seen 400% more interest in Bobby than in other candidates, in terms of people who attended the live streams. And so I think what we're really seeing here is that as the Biden campaign is attempting to really stage-manage how the President is appearing, where he's appearing, what he's talking about, and what those environments are, RFK has said, "I'll go off the cuff on your TikTok live. I will go on your podcast," and really using those mediums, and finding... This is such a weird thing. In theater, when I was a kid, we used to do this walking exercise, where you weren't supposed to look at other people. You were just supposed to find the empty space in the room and go towards it, and that's what his campaign is doing.
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