This summer, as the Democratic primary began to heat up, we saw a fair share of unique, memetic campaign strategies. These ranged from Andrew Yang’s use of bribery to get people to sign up for his mailing list, Marianne Williamson’s ramblings about re-aligning the chakras of the spiritual nation, and Bernie Sander’s declaration that he “wrote the damn bill!” However, perhaps the most important moment for understanding the changing landscape of politics in the internet age was a presidential campaign that you may not have heard of.
The pairing of Mike Gravel, an 89-year-old former US senator from Alaska, and a campaign leadership team of three teenagers—David Oks, Henry Williams, and Henry McGowan—may appear confusing. Gravel, a prominent voice in the anti-war left of the 70s, was for the most part forgotten by popular American history,and relatively unknown to most Gen-Zers. This was until the three boys, later dubbed the “Gravel Teens,” heard about his reading of the Pentagon Papers on the popular left-wing podcast Chapo Trap House. Within a week, they had called the senator, convinced him to run for president, launched an exploratory committee, and started what would be the focal point of the campaign: @MikeGravel on Twitter. Explaining that the bid was solely for the purpose of pushing other candidates to the left on issues like ending the American empire and expanding transgender rights, the end goal was simply putting these issues on the Democratic debate stage. Four months later, the campaign amassed over 65,000 unique donors, hitting the requirement for the July debates. Gravel was even outpolling high profile candidates such as Kirsten Gillibrand. This was not the product of a fluke or something special about Gravel himself; the Gravel Teens had merely tapped into a social media strategy that is able to recruit Gen-Z and Millennial voters to the left in an unprecedented way.
Many have written the campaign off as a ploy for social clout due to the teens’ use of memes and “extremely online” humor to propagate their vision. The Gravel Twitter timeline is populated with gems such as “trans-rights uwu” or “sOmE oF uS lIkE tHe CeNtEr.” While certainly playful, the campaign shaped the political discourse, especially among those 25 and under. Their platform advocated for radical change, especially in the realm of foreign policy. Cutting military aid to Israel, bringing every troop home, establishing a robust reparations fund, outlawing anti-homelessness architecture, were all ideas offered up by the campaign that have received virtually no attention in mainstream discourse However, when bluntly advocated for by the Gravel Twitter account, they are presented as the obvious ethical obligation of the state.
The Gravel campaign is just a taste of the greater left-wing Gen-Z movement online that has democratized political expression. While right-wing radicalization may have won-out on YouTube early on, (there has now been a slow shift towards left wing content on that platform as well) teens in high school or even younger are skeptical about the sort of edgy, alt-right rhetoric popular among the Ben Shapiro-esque online presence, and have turned to a more sincere form of advocacy on even younger platforms like TikTok. Just this past summer, 16-year-old Gillian Sullivan utilized TikTok to help organize a general strike among students in Clark County, Nevada, in solidarity with teachers being denied deserved raises. The video received over 36,000 likes on TikTok and attention from around the internet, sparking a national conversation among students who sympathized with failing school districts. Another TikTok user, @onlyjayus, recently went viral for lamenting the exorbitant wealth of Bill Gates, listing off all of the ridiculous things he could buy without making a dent in his fortune, before contrasting it with the reality that she decides not to buy food on her lunch break to save money. After reaching out to the creator, Isabella, for a comment, she stated that she actually votes Republican and has no affiliation with the political left at all. So while content like this may not show any actual translation to realigning political identity, the video shows a massive shift in internet political discourse. This is a shift towards a greater consideration of economic inequality and a questioning of the status quo.
Yes, the Gravel teens and their TikTok counterparts are trying to approach our political system with a more satirical sentiment, and no, they aren’t as serious as MSNBC pundits or other candidates more interested in compromise. This mockery is if anything, however, just making transparent the presence of youth frustration with the current state of affairs. Too long has the political establishment asked us to be polite when addressing those who treat human life as a traded commodity. We’ve tried everything else. If memes are what will get attention, urgency requires us to use them. Our political system is a satire of itself, and the sincerest commentary on this system, in many instances, is mockery. For better or for worse, memes are the future, and the youth reclaiming political discourse is essential to its survival.
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