{"id":12313,"date":"2024-09-24T16:23:25","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T16:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/why-comrade-kamala-memes-are-taking-off-among-latino-exiles\/"},"modified":"2024-09-24T16:23:25","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T16:23:25","slug":"why-comrade-kamala-memes-are-taking-off-among-latino-exiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/why-comrade-kamala-memes-are-taking-off-among-latino-exiles\/","title":{"rendered":"Why ‘Comrade Kamala’ memes are taking off among Latino exiles"},"content":{"rendered":"


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In Latino exile communities across the US, a question is being asked: is Kamala Harris really a communist?<\/p>\n

The vice-president has been the subject of numerous misleading claims that she is a socialist or communist since becoming the Democratic candidate for president, according to the US\u2019s largest Spanish-language fact-checker Factchequeado.<\/p>\n

Experts say these claims capitalise on genuine fears held by some voters who fled repression in countries like Cuba and Venezuela.<\/p>\n

In one viral video, Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz appear to pose for a selfie in front of a sign for Revolutionary Communists of America, a far-left group.<\/p>\n

The video is fake. The background was doctored by a group of Donald Trump\u2019s supporters known as the Dilley Meme Team.<\/p>\n

Their original post had more than 420,000 views, but it was shared by many Spanish accounts – and repeated offline.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s everywhere, this doubt: \u2018Is this person a communist?\u2019\u201d Evelyn P\u00e9rez-Verd\u00eda, a cultural context strategist from south Florida, told the BBC.<\/p>\n

She was listening to the Spanish-language radio station La Nueva Poderosa in Miami when she heard the hosts discussing the false meme.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you see them standing in front of that picture? They have no shame in who they are,\u201d the hosts said.<\/p>\n

She contacted the station to express concern. The hosts later said on air that they wanted to clarify the story was \u201cnot true\u201d but that \u201cdoesn\u2019t take away from the reality that Kamala is a Marxist\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘Genuine fears’ being weaponised<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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There are nearly 36.2 million eligible Latino voters in America, about 14.7% of the US electorate, and many live in key swing states like Nevada and Arizona, which makes them a coveted demographic for both campaigns.<\/p>\n

They are by no means a homogeneous voting demographic, but historically, Latinos have tended to favour the Democrats. In 2020, 44% voted for Joe Biden, with only 16% voting for Trump. But polls suggest Republicans have gained ground this election cycle, with many factors cited including the economy, immigration, and abortion rights.<\/p>\n

And for some immigrants, concerns about America today reflect their past experiences in their home countries.<\/p>\n

Political messages warning about \u201csocialism\u201d or \u201ccommunism\u201d have been particularly prevalent in communities with large Cuban and Venezuelan populations, like in south Florida, experts noted.<\/p>\n

These expats are especially vulnerable to misinformation about communism because of the trauma they experienced fleeing repression, said Samantha Barrios, a Venezuelan-American based in Miami, Florida, who votes Democrat.<\/p>\n

She accused right-leaning Spanish media of using these terms to \u201cscare Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans\u201d because of \u201cthe main reason that we left our countries, trying to leave these regimes\u201d.<\/p>\n

For some, their criticism of the Democrats is grounded in opinions that the US government has not provided a tough enough response to political repression in Cuba or Venezuela.<\/p>\n

But Ms Barrio is wary of the way these legitimate concerns are being weaponised through false claims that Kamala Harris herself is a communist.<\/p>\n

Ms P\u00e9rez-Verd\u00eda agrees, but she also criticised the Democrat campaign for not doing enough to address their concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t laugh off people\u2019s fears. It\u2019s really disrespectful. People have genuine fears, they came to the United States, they left everything behind. If they have doubts you should address their doubts.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Debate fuels ‘communist’ claims<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Not all claims exclusively target Latinos, said the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas (DDIA), which monitors more than 1,300 WhatsApp groups and more than 200 Telegram channels in Spanish and Portuguese.<\/p>\n

And notable right-wing and pro-Trump actors and influencers have pushed a \u201cfear of socialism\u201d since 2020, the organisation found.<\/p>\n

But while Joe Biden was accused of being a communist when he ran for president, Factchequeado\u2019s founder, Laura Zommer, said their fact checkers had \u201cnever\u201d seen this volume of AI and doctored images before.<\/p>\n

Some of this misinformation has been spread by Trump himself, or his high-profile supporters.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk, who has endorsed Trump, posted a faked image of Kamala Harris in a red uniform emblazoned with the communist hammer and sickle, captioned \u201cKamala vows to be a communist dictator on day one. Can you believe she wears that outfit!?\u201d<\/p>\n

It had more than 83.9 million views. A reverse image search suggests this was the earliest posting of the image on X.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Donald Trump shared an AI image of Harris addressing a communist crowd that had at least 81.5 million views on X, but it was not the first posting of this image.<\/p>\n

Posts linking Harris to communism really took off online after the presidential debate, according a report by the DDIA prepared for the BBC.<\/p>\n

During the debate, Donald Trump called Kamala Harris and her father a \u201cMarxist\u201d and suggested she would turn the US into \u201cVenezuela on steroids\u201d through her immigration policies.<\/p>\n

After the debate, \u201cMarxista\u201d trended on social media and searches for “Marxist” on Google in the US jumped 1000% in 17 hours.<\/p>\n

Factchequeado said the most searched question in Spanish after the debate was: “Who is Kamala Harris\u2019s father?”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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BBC Verify traced the membership card image to a website which allows people to make fake communist party documents<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The DDIA said two claims especially gained traction in the week after the presidential debate. In one, a fabricated document falsely claiming Kamala Harris is a member of the Russian communist party went viral, according to Meta\u2019s own metrics. Another claim, that Harris is \u201cKamarada [Comrade] Kamala\u201d, arose from a Trump speech in which he portrays her as a \u201ccommunist comrade\u201d.<\/p>\n

BBC Verify traced the membership card image to a website which allows people to make fake communist party documents. <\/p>\n

The membership number, stamp and other details on the card were identical to a template on the site for making a party membership card. <\/p>\n

Posts sharing the fake image, which was first shared in August, have been viewed more than half a million times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘We’ll slide into communism’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Republicans have been gaining ground with Latino voters in recent years<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The Democratic Party is not a socialist party, nor does it claim to support communist regimes. But some high-profile members like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have described their political views as \u201cdemocratic socialist\u201d.<\/p>\n

When she was a California senator, Harris co-sponsored Sanders\u2019 Medicare for All bill, which would have brought a single-payer health care system to the US. She has since said she no longer supports a single-payer health-care system, which would have abolished private insurers.<\/p>\n

She has never advocated for communist policies, such as the abolition or seizure of private property.<\/p>\n

Kamala Harris\u2019s plan to crackdown on \u201cprice gouging\u201d at supermarkets has been cited in Spanish social media posts as \u201ccommunist\u201d. Mr Musk claimed it would mean \u201cempty shelves, just like in Venezuela\u201d.<\/p>\n

Her proposal, which would involve asking the trade commission to investigate price spikes far above the increase in the cost of production, is a far cry from the widespread price controls seen in Cuba and Venezuela that were in part blamed for severe food shortages.<\/p>\n

But for some voters who fled those countries, their fear lies in anything they feel remotely resembles policies from the countries they came from.<\/p>\n

Duke Machado, who runs a Latino Republican Facebook page from Texas called Latino Strikeforce, said he fears that if the Democrats win, the country would be on a slippery slope to communism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re not careful, we\u2019ll slide into Cuba and Venezuela. Their ultimate goal is to destroy capitalism.”<\/p>\n

When asked if it was responsible to share fears that the Democrats could turn the US into a communist country with his followers, including Latino exiles who had fled repression, he said: \u201cIt\u2019s not irresponsible at all. I see it as a duty.\u201d<\/p>\n

With additional reporting by Kayleen Devlin from BBC Verify<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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More on the US election<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Getty Images In Latino exile communities across the US, a question is being asked: is Kamala Harris really a communist? The vice-president has been the subject of numerous misleading claims that she is a socialist or communist since becoming the Democratic candidate for president, according to the US\u2019s largest Spanish-language fact-checker Factchequeado. Experts say these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12315,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12313\/revisions\/12315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}