WASHINGTON: A wave of trash talk and conspiracy theories is raining down on Americans as MAGA lunatics and extreme left crazies are duking it out on social media over their respective officials ‘ character and significance. The exit of Prez Joe Biden from the 2024 race for the White House and the promotion of Kamala Harris as the prospective Democratic nominee has unleashed a furious assault on everything from her character to her mannerisms.
Trump himself has led the way, gibing about the way she laughs and calling her crazy. ” I call her laughing Kamala. You can tell a lot by a laugh. She’s crazy. She’s nuts,” Trump told a rally in Michigan in a meandering speech that led liberal trolls to joke that bats in the animal kingdom were going” Trump-shit crazy” ( a play on the expression “batshit crazy” ).
MAGA activists backed up Trump’s jibe by posting an edited mash-up of Harris laughing on different occasions in different settings, and worse, impugning her character by talking up a purported affair she had some 30 years ago.
Conspiracy theories are also proliferating by the minute. They range from Biden’s statement on quitting the race not being on an official letterhead and the signature on it not matching his usual signature ( and therefore suspicious ), to the familiar birther theory about Harris being born outside the US or being an offspring of foreign student, and therefore not eligible to run for White House.
Activists on both sides also duked it out on her identity- on whether she is African-American or Indian-American, and which heritage she embraces or avoids. Harris is Jamaican-American ( from her dad’s side ) and Indian-American ( from her mom’s side ), and therefore she’s black-brown, not strictly African-American in the conventional sense.
She often identifies herself as black but also embraces Indian heritage from her maternal side, growing up closer to her mother, who brought her up as a single mom after her parents divorced when she was six. Trolls also feasted on edited mash-ups of Harris ‘ “rambling word salad”, with one right-wing outlet suggesting it “may be a symptom of a little-known but common psychological condition called logorrhoea- also known as verbal diarrhoea”.
To be fair, liberal trolls have confected similar mash-ups of Trump ( who suffers even more from a similar condition ), including parodying his scowls, jowls, and other facial contortions. AI tools are further helping wreak havoc.
