We have officially reached that late period in a presidential campaign where the thoroughly leftist national newspapers turn into partisan rags that coo and gush, this time over Vice President Kamala Harris. Consider the July 31 “Style” section of The Washington Post.
It began with a large color photograph of a Harris impersonator on TikTok named Alison Reese. The headline was “On Harris’s laugh, a symphony of feedback.” A caption under Reese and her rainbow flag said Reese “says Harris’s laugh ‘feels more uninhibited. … The laugh is truly coming from this place of inner joy.'”
Post writers Maura Judkis and Kara Voght claimed Harris’ “ebullient laugh” has “the same tempo as some truly excellent dance songs.” They assembled academic experts – including Kate Manne, who wrote a whole book about Hillary Clinton’s laugh being exploited in 2016 – to find misogyny in mocking Kamala’s cackle.
“It’s been taboo for women to speak too loud, to laugh too loud, to laugh too much,” proclaimed Kathleen Karlyn, a scholar of cinema and media studies. “It’s predictable that, when Kamala laughs, she’s asserting her power and her refusal to be silent or play by these old rules about proper femininity.”
Karlyn wrote a book titled “The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter.”
Citing Harris’ viral comment about falling out of a coconut tree, the Post scribes are declaring victory in the Laugh Wars: “Conservatives seem to have lost control of the ‘Laughing Kamala’ narrative that they tried to create. What they put forth as cringeworthy has been alchemized into coconutmentum.”
Underneath that analysis was Post book critic Becca Rothfeld’s essay on the Meme Wars. Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 to “the group of pathologically online reactionaries known as the alt-right.” But have no fear, Democrats! Rothfeld touted the Kamala coconut tree meme as being “shared and reshared, in a burst of collective giddiness.”
The Democrat factions battled over Biden, but “the euphoric meming around Harris has allowed a wide range of members of the Democratic-leaning electorate to coalesce around her without having to commit to everything she stands for.”
On the bottom left of the Style section front page was gender columnist Monica Hesse’s hot take: “Why ‘weird’ is the most effective insult Democrats have tried so far.” Hesse began by recalling a “Superman” comic book in 1946 in which he battled a xenophobic group resembling the KKK (think Trump). Hesse said, “It’s all about the power of word choice, rhetoric and peer pressure.”
Hesse channeled a pile of Democrat politicians uncorking their “weird” insults – Tim Walz, Chris Murphy and Pete Buttigieg – and this abortion-loving feminist was especially happy with a line from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “Being obsessed with repressing women is goofy.”
She loves how the word “weird” can freak out Trump fans: “What if, instead of being admired or feared, they are instead being laughed at? What if, instead of edgelords, they are actually just the kids in the corner eating glue off their hands?”
Just above Hesse’s column as it continued on page C-3 was an article by Adela Suliman gushing over how “White Dudes for Harris” raised $4 million. More momentum talk burbled. “The momentum is extraordinary,” oozed Buttigieg. “I’ve never felt this kind of belief, this kind of enthusiasm ever,” exclaimed actor Bradley Whitford.
Suggesting The Washington Post is overflowing with joyous partisan propaganda, energetically aiming to keep the momentum surging for Harris and the Democrats all the way to November? That’s too mild. This kind of broadsheet bombast is why Donald Trump uses the term “fake news.” It looks like a newspaper, but sounds like a cheerleader.
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