‘Brat’ Kamala or ‘dragon mother’ Pelosi? This meme machine is a risky strategy in a high-stakes election | Nesrine Malik

Meme, celebrity and cultural symbolism have become the language not only of political performance but also of political analysis and media coverage. The worlds of social media and politics have fully converged, producing a sort of extended entertainment event. Harris’s transformation itself, within days, from a relatively low-impact and low-presence vice-president to the juggernaut she has become has involved a hectic re-scripting. Only a year after she assumed vice-presidential office, the question was “where did it go wrong” for Harris. She was “hobbled in the public consciousness”. Early last year, the New York Times reported that “even some Democrats whom her own advisers referred reporters to for supportive quotes confided privately that they had lost hope in her”.