The Kamala Harris political compass meme uses the traditional grid format but replaces political positions with pieces of Harris quotes. Social media users are taking the template and placing characters from popular media in each quadrant, as well as anything from Taylor Swift albums to medieval paintings.
The meme spread as part of the enthusiasm around the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris after President Joe Biden bowed out of the 2024 race following pressure from high-level Democrats and much of the public.
What is the Kamala Harris political compass meme?
This summer meme is a variation of the standard political compass meme format, a grid split into four quadrants with the ends of each axis labeled “left,” “right,” “authoritarian,” and “libertarian.” The Kamala Harris meme replaces these with “thinks she just fell out of a coconut tree,” “exists in the context,” “what can be,” and “burdened by what has been.”
These new labels reference statements made by Harris during political speeches that have become viral memes. The story about her mother and the coconut tree, and her habit of talking about “what can be, unburdened by what has been” have contributed to her reputation as a little bit weird and silly, making the Vice President relatable to all the messy ladies out there.
Origin of the political compass meme
Pace News LTD and political journalist Wayne Brittenden created and copyrighted the political compass we know today in 2001. Their website provides recommended reading to understand each of the four types of political thinking they’ve proposed: Authoritarian left, authoritarian right, libertarian left, and libertarian right.
The idea was that a set of 62 propositions could be used to categorize any individual, political party, or ideology, placing them somewhere on the grid based on how extreme or moderate they are in terms of economic and social policy.
Parodies of the political compass have appeared online since the early 2010s. Some of them attempt to describe the political attitudes of each quadrant in amusing and often biased terms, while others represent each with images of characters from popular media, celebrities, objects, other memes, or anything else imaginable.
The Kamala Harris political compass meme origins
The first use of the Kamala Harris political compass meme appeared on Twitter on July 24, 2024, by user @waldenmgreen. It makes use of two popular and highly meme quotes from Harris in speeches she gave at political events.
The one on the X-axis references the famous coconut tree quote from May 2023. Video footage of the speech in which Harris talked about something her mother liked to say was posted by the RNC Research account on Twitter to disparage her—a move that backfired spectacularly.
Kamala Harris: "My mother used to give us a hard time sometimes and she would say to us, 'I don't know what's wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?' Ha ha ha ha." pic.twitter.com/aGMFCGgKt6
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 10, 2023
“My mother used to—she would give us a hard time sometimes and she would say to us ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you,’” Harris says in the video.
Harris has used the phrase “what can be, unburdened by what has been” multiple times during her political career. Its use as a meme may originate from yet another blunder by RNC Research from December 17, 2023.
Here are four straight minutes of Kamala Harris being "unburdened" pic.twitter.com/S4X5mfGKRm
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 17, 2023
Meme spread
Followers of @waldenmgreen responded to her initial post with their versions of the Kamala Harris political compass meme as the week went on. It wasn’t long before the meme’s creator provided a template of the new grid to make things easier on their fans.
It took less than a day for Twitter users to move on from fictional characters and to other subjects, including very old paintings and books from the 90s.
Kamala Harris political compass meme template
Examples
- Where do you stand on these new political compass memes?
- Reddit turns on Kamala Harris as memes overwhelm forums
- Biden-Harris dropout memes mark the legacy of 2020s political humor
- Kamala Harris is having a ‘Brat Girl Summer’: Here’s what that means
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