Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff face online wave of sexist, racist attacks

As Donald Trump’s campaign shifts his focus to presumptive Democratic nominee, Vice-President Kamala Harris, the online ecosystem of the far right has responded in lockstep with racist insults, misogynistic tropes, antisemitic conspiracy theories and viral memes against her. Some of those attacks, common throughout her vice-presidency, are directly targeting her Jewish husband and second gentleman, Doug Emhoff.

After Joe Biden’s stunning decision to step down as the Democratic candidate in this year’s presidential election to then endorse Harris, Republicans as high ranking as Trump were quick to decry the switch as tantamount to a “coup” attempt – a dangerous allegation with no factual basis.

“They stole the race from Biden after he won it in the primaries – A First!” Trump posted on his Truth Social app, alleging high-ranking Democrats plotted to oust his former opponent. “These people are the real THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!”

Related: ‘I was not voting before, now I am’: gen Z voters on what they think of Kamala Harris

On sites like Gab (a type of X knockoff), the encrypted Telegram platform, and the messaging board 4chan – among other favorites of the far right, there is a boom in offensive activities against the sitting vice-president.

Among the themes of insults is one of the far right’s most common anxieties: absurd criticisms of Harris achieving her success through sexual favors and endless accusations that her husband, long a target of the vaunted manosphere, is a “cuck” for being married to one of the most powerful people in the world.

For example, in early July, after a Covid-19 diagnosis, Emhoff was immediately taunted on X.

“*CUCKVID,” one far-right user tweeted, among several other similar posts.

Now, as Harris is poised to have a shot at potentially being the first female US president in history, fresh attacks on Emhoff becoming the first-ever first gentleman have begun.

“Hahahaha, what a cuck,” said one anonymous user on 4chan, commenting on a photo of Harris and her husband posted on Monday, “[h]ow many dicks did she ride to get where she is?”

Another commenter in the same thread then called Emhoff the vice-president’s “Jewish handler”, while another called him a Jewish “cuckboy”.

Emhoff, who is a lawyer and visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center, is father to Ella Emhoff, a daughter from a previous marriage who has also come into the crosshairs of the American far right in recent years. After an appearance at Harris’s inauguration in 2021, Ella became a model and fashion influencer and simultaneously the bane of the far right.

Targeted attacks against Ella have been growing since Sunday as the reality of Harris’s candidacy becomes more concrete.

“Ella Emhoff, stepdaughter of Vice President Kamala Harris is very disturbing!” wrote one Gab user on Tuesday. Some of the attacks have included transphobic and homophobic slurs, like one Gab account claiming to be a news site that posted a photo of her with the message: “Meet Ella Emhoff , stepdaughter of Vice President. Another sick filthy degenerate Leftist. Is that a tranny?”

In response to her marriage to Emhoff, Harris has frequently been the subject of antisemitic conspiracy theories. And with Biden stepping down, there are fresh allegations of a “Jewish coup”, as many have come to describe an outlandish conspiracy against the president, which allegedly involves Harris.

Many of those same “coup” posters also shared a photo of the vice-president with Alex Soros, son of George Soros and subject of some of the most loathsome antisemitic conspiracies on the internet, which claim the billionaire businessman is somehow controlling global business and government elites.

For Harris, a female politician in a presidential race that has only ever featured one other, these latest antisemitic attacks include overtly sexualized vulgarities inferring she has engaged in sexual acts with powerful members of the “Jewry”, as one Telegram post claimed.

Others on the same app were even more direct.

“AIPAC slut Kamala,” said one user in a message already viewed over 17,000 times on Telegram, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel and bipartisan lobbying group that Harris has supported in the past.

According to recent analysis published by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (Gpahe), between 19 and 21 July hateful and violent speech towards Harris rose 33% on Truth Social, 292% on Gab, 50% on Telegram and a whopping 525% on 4chan.

The Gpahe analysis made clear that this was a classic playbook from the far right and a revealing aspect of their gender ideology. In 2016, a grassroots and far-right “memetic warfare” movement was weaponized against then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, in which gender as a common theme of attack.

Heidi Beirich, an expert on American far-right extremism and a co-founder of Gpahe, said: “Female politicians have been targeted with misogynistic language for years, and usually they are the recipients of far more hate and sexism than male candidates face.”

“Attacks on Harris for her racial background are skyrocketing online,” added Beirich, who gave testimony to the House select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. “As bad as the racism targeting her is, the misogyny seems worse.

“She’s being attacked for supposedly sleeping her way to the top and with horrible sexist slurs. Sadly, this is how it goes nowadays, with racism and hate so prevalent online.”

The Gpahe analysis also pointed out that JD Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri, who, like Harris, is of Indian ancestry, was also racially targeted for her ethnic background after giving a speech at the Republican national convention last week.

Related: Republican leaders urge party to avoid racist and sexist attacks against Harris

Joshua Fisher-Birch, an analyst who tracks the global far right at the Counter Extremism Project, noticed the same racist anti-Indian content after surveying similar accounts across a broad spectrum of sites in the last week.

“It’s worth mentioning that extreme-right Telegram channels and users posted racist content after JD Vance was chosen to be Trump’s vice-presidential pick,” he said in an email. “The patterns are similar.”

Harris and speculation about her pick for running mate have also become a topic of conspiracy theory, with many on the far right predicting she intends to pick either Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, or Illinois’s governor, J B Pritzker, who are both Jewish.

“Kamala’s Jewish VP candidate,” reposted one neo-Nazi-adjacent account on Telegram, showing an image of Shapiro, “the Indian-Jew axis is on the ballot.”

But with all of the hatred towards Harris, some on the far right are bemoaning the loss of Biden as an adversary, with one post on Telegram viewed over 11,000 times showing a video of Harris with the caption: “It’s just not the same. Comeback Joe Biden.”