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The internet has fallen out of the coconut tree.
Speculation that President Joe Biden will hang up his re-election campaign has triggered a wave of semi-ironic online support for Vice President Kamala Harris, with fan cams set to songs from Charli XCX and memes that riff on a string of memorable quotes from her last few years in office.
The “KHive” — the online grassroots stan-culture army of earnest supporters who fueled online rage and enthusiastic support for Harris when she launched her 2020 run for the presidency — was resurrected overnight. Now Americans are quickly become coconut-pilled, Kamala maxxing, “existing in context” and “unburdened by what has been.”
Following an emerging pressure campaign for Biden to exit the race, a flood of irony-poisoned jokers and exhausted voters joined in, clinging to some kind of relief while staring down the possibility of a second Donald Trump presidency with only a deteriorating Biden in his way.
Social media users flooded timelines with out-of-context clips featuring Harris laughing, dancing and remembering something her mother once told her:
“Everything is in context. 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?’” she said while laughing during a White House event in 2023.
She then whipped to a sincere and serious turn of phrase that has lived on in countless memes: “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”
And then there’s “we know what can happen and what is possible when we collectively have the ability to see what can be unburdened by what has been.”
“why did I stay up till 3am making a von dutch brat coconut tree edit featuring kamala harris and why can’t I stop watching it on repeat,” wrote a user on X, whose video superimposes Charli XCX’s Brat album art over a montage of Harris.
“I’m a KHiver now because it’s somehow both the soberly correct stance and the funny irony-poisoned stance,” wrote author David Klion.
The funny irony-poisoned posts haven’t stopped: “Look, this burgeoning, unstoppable freight train of a candidacy didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree. It exists in a context.” “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this coconut tree!” A “Kamala Harris Apology Form” that jokingly harkens back to a time when the KHive threatened to steamroll any candidate who crossed it.
There’s Harris dancing with a marching band, or singing a slightly off-key version of “Wheels on the Bus.”
“I love Venn Diagrams,” Harris said in one recirculated clip. “I really do. I love Venn diagrams. It’s just something about those three circles, the analysis about where there’s the intersection, right?... I see people... you agree with me right? OK, so I asked my team... I brought props.”
The Supreme Court has fundamentally restructured the federal government and the office of the presidency within a week’s worth of rulings. Trump and his allies have opened the door to violent retribution and a platform bent on consolidating power around him, if elected. Following Biden’s inability to hold Trump accountable for his lies during their first 2024 debate, the White House and his campaign are swatting down suggestions that he is going anywhere.
Social media users are washing it down by embracing a delirious rush of self-referential memes and impenetrable Harris-isms that imagine, if even briefly, that things could be different.
“Realized it’s not excitement for Kamala that I’m feeling it’s this moment of hope that the Dems might take drastic measures to do something outside of How Things Are Typically Done for once in my life. Imagine that? What a high,” wrote journalist Luke O’Neil. “Of course they most likely will stay the course.”
At least two Democratic members of Congress have openly called for the president to drop out of the race. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has suggested there may be serious questions about his health. In a column for Newsweek, former Ohio congressman Tim Ryan pushed for Harris to replace Biden on the 2024 ticket.
If Biden did drop out of the race, and Harris remained on the ticket, she would inherit the millions of dollars in the Biden campaign war chest that could fuel her candidacy into Election Day.
Biden, for his part, has resisted any characterizations that he’s going anywhere.
“Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can, as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running,” Biden told campaign staff on Wednesday. “No one’s pushing me out. I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.”
Facing a barrage of questions about Biden’s viability and fitness for office, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisted that the president is still running but added that Harris remains “the future” of the Democratic Party.
The possibility of a Harris campaign, real or imagined, wasn’t just social media hype. Her name is also topping betting markets for the best odds of emerging as the Democratic nominee.
