Brat, Coconuts, and the Kamalanomenon: The Power of the Youth Vote

You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you—the context being the massive boulder of political nonsense that was dunked on all of America in the past month. Former President Trump and President Biden had a debate that may go down in history as one of the most SNL-coded events in history, Trump got a photo-op after being shot in the ear, Biden has stepped down, and Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, is now permanently associated with having indecent relations with a couch due to photoshopped images on X. 

No, this is not all a Simpsons episode plot—it’s real. 

Since Vice President Kamala Harris has taken the reins, we’ve seen a massive shift in the way political advertising has been utilized. Harris’ campaign strategy is absolutely brilliant and a drastic 180 degrees from the strategies of the past few election cycles, largely in response to the tide-turning power of social media and the increasing prioritization of the youth vote. Politicians are finally beginning to acknowledge the policies that truly matter due to growing social momentum, but now more than ever, we, the youth, have a responsibility to push it further.  

In the past two election cycles, the American political space has largely been defined by what can only be chaos, disbelief, and disappointment. According to the Harvard Kennedy School’s most recent youth poll, a steep decline in the trust of institutions plagues the country. Since 2015, trust in the President, the Supreme Court, Congress, and the military have dropped by 60, 55, 34, and 38 percent, respectively. Presidential campaigns have been painfully aware of this but have impressively managed to completely backfire in addressing this downhill trend. Additionally, they’ve only managed to amplify it by continuing to default on a lesser-of-two-evils narrative in their campaigns. In the most obvious case, Biden’s entire re-election campaign was largely built on the idea that not voting for him would be a vote for Trump and his regressive policies. This has devastating consequences: in a race to the bottom, people begin to condition themselves to vote for simply the “least worse” candidate, and soon, this becomes the only thing that a candidate can use to sway votes. Statistics further support this—a Bloomberg poll from February found that when asked if the two candidates were either too old or dangerous, only seven percent of people answered neither for the former while only nine percent answered neither for the latter. At the point where the majority of the public believes either one or both of our two major candidates are at best incompetent and at worst a death wish, we need to re-evaluate. Luckily, it seems Harris’s campaign is looking to do just that by empowering the youth vote. 

In the midst of this, a bright line remains, and that hope lies within the youth of the American people. Each failure that we’ve seen consecutively take place in the past few years has only worked to generate more and more engagement and determination within the youth population. According to a 2023 Statista survey on US political activism by age, 15 percent of Gen-Z adults had attended a rally or demonstration, a number more than double that of Gen-X and millennials. The rate for engaging in volunteer work goes even higher at 30 percent. In addition, for many Gen-Z individuals, this election cycle will be either their first or second, and they are ready to put their vote to use. The combination of these factors means that candidates now have the pressure of appealing to youth voters as their votes look to become more decisive in the final election. 

 Harris and her campaign acknowledge the necessity of the youth vote, and they’ve dived headfirst into winning it. Since her debut, Harris has done a major rebranding of Biden’s previous campaign, hopping onto TikTok trends and emphasizing that she doesn’t just advocate for the American people, but that she also understands the average American young adult. From the “brat” branding inspired by Charlie XCX to her official social media platform, KamalaHQ, and inviting popular artists like Megan Thee Stallion to perform at rallies, Harris is narrowing the gap that campaigns have often ended up pushing between the public and politicians. 

A critical part of her success is how she makes an effort to distinguish herself from the aforementioned lesser-of-two-evils marketing by emphasizing the values that make her a good candidate rather than simply the better alternative. In her own words from her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, “My entire career, I’ve only had one client: the people.”  She highlights how her personal history has built her, emphasizing the way her mother and her upbringing has shaped her values, and the importance of those values in her vision for the future. She has chosen Tim Walz for her vice presidential pick, a man who has been dedicated to the public sector since day one through working as a veteran, social studies teacher, and football coach before engaging in government. She emphasizes her policies by highlighting their significance and discussing them to the fullest degree. Specifically, when discussing the lack of support for survivors in the justice system, she calls on her experience as a prosecutor in order to charge a larger message about how “No one should be made to fight alone. We are all in this together.” She is a breath of fresh air, a glimpse of hope for the future, and in what can only be described as a Kamalanomenon, Kamala is taking over youth support by storm. 

However, with all this momentum, two major turning points remain integral to truly pushing through critical change. 

The first is election day turnout: youth voters have always had historically low turnout, with roughly 50 percent of individuals between the ages of 18-29 casting a ballot in 2020 and even less at 36 percent in 2016. Harris’s all-in strategy means that the visionaries and activists we’ve seen leading the youth charge must turn up the dial. All of you rising seniors, you’ll finally be able to vote in the upcoming year. Your vote is all of our voices—make an effort to inform yourself on different candidates’ policies and become politically engaged at every level of the ballot. You have the power to craft the future, and it is now your time to build it. As former President Obama stated at the Democratic National Convention, “Don’t Boo—Vote!”

The second is speaking louder now that a presidential candidate is finally beginning to listen—this is a critical point in time where officials may be opening up to public advocacy. Even if you’re not eligible to vote yet, there’s still a plethora of things you can do to put more pressure on politicians to not just listen, but act. You can engage in protests, write letters to local legislators and officials, join youth political groups advocating for different causes, or come up with your own project to encourage political literacy.

When we use our youth power to its fullest advantage, we can finally take productive steps toward building an America that we can be proud of in the future.