Don't meme it: Harris/Walz must address Gen Z's real concerns to win

Tang is a rising senior at Deerfield Academy.

It started with coconuts, brats and idiosyncratic dances. It has expanded into pictures with piglets and Minnesota jokes now that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has joined the presidential race as Kamala Harris' running mate. Such viral posts represent the Democratic ticket’s reversal of fortune — the Harris campaign says it has raised more than $500 million since President Joe Biden exited the race.

The memefication of politics is stronger than it’s ever been.

But memes are not enough to win over younger voters like me. They’re great, don’t get me wrong, but people don’t often take their political views from deep-fried images.

Harris has closed the 6-point gap that separated Biden and former President Donald Trump, and she even leads in the latest polls. However, in June 2016, Hillary Clinton was 11 points ahead of Trump, who, as we know, won the election that year. The race isn’t over.

Harris wants to win over younger voters decisively. To do that, the Harris/Walz campaign must avoid excessively memefying its campaign. Instead, there are three things they must do:

First, the vice president must focus on Gen Z issues the GOP seems unwilling to discuss. Climate change, abortion, gun control in schools and the war in Gaza are all critical voting issues for my generation that, quite frankly, are easy grabs for Harris. Trump’s hardline conservatism likely won’t deliver satisfying answers to Gen Z voters and will only serve to alienate them, which might also be why the Republican Party hates talking about them in the first place.

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Second, do not assume my generation is wedded to the Democratic Party. We already compromised our goals in 2020 when everyone told us to vote for Biden because he was better than Trump. Courting a jaded Gen Z voter bloc with only the promise of pragmatism will lead us to resent the Democratic Party more and increasingly view it as a machine of career politics rather than a vehicle for progressive reform. This was the problem with Biden. The president failed us on a number of issues: keeping abortion away from the cliff’s edge, reigning in soaring rent prices and forgiving student loans.

Third, don’t overuse memes as the primary mode of appealing to young voters. As Ryan Broderick wrote for GQ, you can’t force a meme. The memes that hit just right — that “hit different,” as we say — are rare. Using too many memes and funny soundbites will make it seem like the vice president’s campaign is trying to win voters over with vibe rather than vision. Gen Z is not naive; on the contrary, we’re incredibly cynical regarding our elected officials. Digital marketing should only supplement the campaign’s efforts to tap into younger voters.

Harris and Walz are a pair of institutional politicians, and no number of funny coconut memes will change that impression for us, no matter how much “dad energy” Walz exhibits. Even worse, juxtaposing palm tree emojis — the new shorthand for the coconut tree — with the assassination attempt on Trump may make the Harris/Walz campaign look unserious compared to the GOP team after the FBI shot down conspiracy theories and confirmed a bullet hit the former president. The KHive needs to read the room. It’s a different one after July.

But that doesn’t mean Harris can’t authentically engage with younger voters. She can. If Harris 2024 aims to energize younger voters, we need to feel like the vice president cares about our issues. A fireside chat with a mix of high school and college students, a press release detailing plans for continued loan forgiveness and a statement regarding housing reform are all easy activities that could boost Harris in the polls.

Harris should build on Biden’s “passing of the torch” message and empower younger voters with hope for the future, spearheading an optimistic vision of an America that Gen Z can inherit while countering conservative fear-mongering.

I get it. You gotta get a gimmick, as the old Sondheim song advised. Ultimately, the deluge of memes allows Harris/Walz to storm onto the election scene and grab headlines — maybe give a refresher on how to pronounce her name or inject a bit of levity into the campaign season — but that’s it.

If Harris/Walz relies too heavily on meme culture, the campaign risks looking like a 55-year-old Steve Buscemi in an episode of “30 Rock,” dressed in a bizarre mix of grunge and hipster clothes, slinging a skateboard over his back as he awkwardly tries to pass as a teen, asking, “How do you do, fellow kids?” It won’t land, at least not how they want it to.