By Dr. Jennifer Mercieca
“I know a thing or two about how hard it can be for strong women candidates to fight through the sexism and double standards of American politics,” wrote Hillary Clinton, “I’ve been called a witch, a ‘nasty woman,’ and much worse.”
As Clinton found when she ran for president, America hasn’t made it easy for women in politics.
Scholars often call the lose-lose challenges that women politicians face a “double bind.” Women lose if they act too aggressive and are too “masculine,” and they lose if they don’t act aggressive enough and are too “feminine.” Women lose if they show they’re too smart—then they’re “plotting” or “calculating”—and they lose if they don’t—then they’re “silly” and “stupid.” As Kathleen Hall Jamieson explains, it works exactly like the old witch trials did—once accused of being a witch, you were drowned if you confessed, and you were drowned if you didn’t.
It’s even harder to be a woman of color in American politics because you have to contend with both misogyny and racism. And social media has only made the attacks against women worse. Because of the “horizontal” nature of social media, we all have a role to play in defending women from attacks on their character. You can prepare to defend women online by understanding how the attacks work and inoculating yourself. Then—if you want to do even more—you can prepare to flood their zone with positivity.
In 2020, disinformation researcher Nina Jankowicz led a study on gendered abuse and disinformation against women political candidates. She found 336k pieces of abuse and disinformation, targeting 13 candidates during the time period of her study. 78% of that nasty content targeted Kamala Harris.
Jankowicz and her team found three repeating narratives used in attacks against Harris in 2020, all of which have already resurfaced in the short time that Harris has become the presumed Democratic nominee:
First, Jankowicz found “sexualized narratives” that falsely claimed Harris “slept her way to the top” or that she is sexually promiscuous. This is an accusation that Megyn Kelly and others have already used to attack Harris’ credibility.
Second, Jankowicz found “transphobic narratives” that falsely claimed Harris was secretly a man. An account called “Not Op Cue” posted this accusation again on Twitter just this week.
Third, Jankowicz found “racist and racialized narratives” that “falsely claimed Harris was not eligible for the presidency because both of her parents were immigrants. They also frequently claimed she wasn’t ‘black enough’ or ‘Indian enough’ to claim those identities.” We’ve already seen these racialized accusations so frequently that the Associated Press included them in a recent fact check.
Though Harris’ presidential campaign has only just begun, we’ve also seen new attacks emerge:
Trump has mocked “laughing Kamala,” and Fox News has mocked “Kamala’s cackle” repeatedly.
Kellyanne Conway has claimed that “she doesn’t work hard.” (a racist dog whistle that she’s “lazy”)
JD Vance has called her a “childless cat lady.” Representative Harriet Hageman has said, “I think she was a DEI hire.” (another racist dog whistle)
Since Harris began her presidential campaign, propagandists have flooded social media with these racist and misogynistic messages designed to drown out the support and enthusiasm that many voters feel about her campaign, using ad hominem attacks against Harris’ credibility.
This technique is sometimes called the “firehose of propaganda” model or what right-wing political operative Steve Bannon inartfully described as “flooding the zone with sh*t.” Though all apps are vulnerable to being flooded with propaganda, the platform formerly known as Twitter is the central hub of the information wars. Twitter sets the news agenda. It's where agenda setters go to frame events and reality.
Americans try to use social media for democratic deliberation, but these platforms are not designed for that. They are much more conducive to information warfare, which is what we've been subjected to since 2015. The goal of propaganda is to control the conversation on Twitter. That’s why adversarial foreign governments like Russia, right-wing conspiracists, and other anti-democratic forces have swamped Twitter with bots, sock puppets, and trolls.
Modern information warfare is designed to control the online conversation and, subsequently, our thoughts and feelings. It relies on circulation and amplification (to create a large volume of messages), on narratives (frames/memes), and on rhetorical strategies (outrage, demoralize the opposition, spread hypocrisy, make hate-objects, etc.).
It’s incredibly effective, and no one seems capable of ending information warfare. Though the baddies have been attacking our public sphere and trying to influence our elections since 2015, Democrats don’t seem to have any really great ideas about how to respond. The platforms made a meager attempt but have since given up.
But Swifties (Taylor Swift fans) know exactly how to deal with this kind of online harassment. They’ve been protecting their queen from online harassment for years by flooding the internet with positive content to drown out the negative. K-pop fans and other fandoms use this kind of online strategy, too.
For example, in late January “Taylor Swift AI” trended on Twitter due to graphic and sexually explicit non-consensual AI-generated images of Swift. Her fans responded with two strategies that effectively neutralized the trend: they mass-reported the accounts sharing the images for violating Twitter’s terms of service, and they flooded the trending hashtag with joyful photos and videos about Swift along with a message to “protect Taylor Swift.” When meanies “flood the zone with sh*t,” Swifties “flood their zone with happy.”
The strategy was effective because mass reporting got the images taken down and flooding the hashtag meant that when anyone tried to find the images, they instead found positive and happy Swiftie-approved content. It was an impressive and joyful response to a difficult episode of information warfare.
Democrats can learn from the Swifties: when you see anti-Kamala content or trending topics, co-opt it and flood their zone with positivity. Re-frame trending topics to lessen their power to control the conversation.
Twitter is not a place for democratic deliberation. Unfortunately, it is not a place for rational discussion or debating facts. The attacks against Harris have already been fact-checked and refuted, but that has not stopped propagandists from using them to diminish her credibility.
Here is where pro-Kamala and pro-democracy forces can take advantage of the “horizontal” nature of social media. We all have a role to play in defending women from attacks, but do not respond to posts that use these attacks. Responding to the posts gives them more attention and boosts negativity. Instead, take the keywords used in the post or trending topic (“Taylor Swift AI” with a nasty image) and flip it by posting something positive (“Taylor Swift AI” with a lovely picture of Taylor laughing). Do not recirculate their abusive content. You might also add “Protect Kamala Harris.”
Some basic rules for “flooding their zone with positivity”:
1. Look at what is trending for inspiration.
2. If what is trending is positive, then great! (do nothing or amplify it). If what is trending is negative, then flood that topic with happy messages!
3. Do not respond to mean tweets. Block.
4. If racist or sexist words trend, do not happy flood those words. Try to make something else trend.
Flooding their zone with happy Kamala content does two things simultaneously: it drowns out the negative, and replaces it with positive. Propaganda works by eroding confidence and hope—it is designed to demoralize the opposition so they believe they will be defeated. We need people to be hopeful. Hopeful action is the only thing that will save us.
Harris represents a new generation of women in leadership roles. Recent pop culture signals that younger generations are sick of the “double bind” of traditional gender roles. Taylor Swift herself has a catchy anthem about the “double bind” she faces. In “The Man” she fantasizes about how much easier things would be for her if she were a man—“They’d say I hustled. Put in the work. They wouldn't shake their heads and question how much of this I deserve.” Likewise, the “double bind” facing women was a central theme of last year’s smash hit movie Barbie. “It’s literally impossible to be a woman,” America Ferrea’s character explains to Barbie, “somehow we’re always doing it wrong.”
With “happy flooding,” Democrats might be able to win the information wars and the election. And, if they do, then Harris may finally be able to defeat the “double bind” that limits women everywhere.
