Social media users on Friday mocked an anonymous memo advocating for Vice President Kamala Harris to replace President Biden at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket.
The Google Document, entitled “Unburdened by What Has Been: The Case for Kamala,” has reportedly been circulated by major Democratic donors, political operatives and coalition groups in the wake of the 81-year-old president’s disastrous debate performance against former President Donald Trump.
“There’s one path out of this mess, and it’s Kamala,” the document states. “Kamala Harris has the strongest claim to Democratic legitimacy. She is the only candidate who can take the reins right now, instead of in late August with less than three months left to go. She has significant and widely underplayed electoral advantages. She can win.”
“She’s not the best option — she’s the only realistic option to win,” the authors of the memo argue.
The title of the memo is a nod to one of the vice president’s most infamous “word salad” remarks.
It was purportedly written by “senior operatives within Democratic political institutions” with no personal or professional ties to Harris.
“We simply want to defeat Trump,” the authors said. “We are writing this in our personal capacities because we believe that we need to cut through the chaos, identify which options are realistic and which are fantasies, and advocate for the only real path forward. The stakes are too high to do anything else.”
At one point in the document, the authors paint a scenario in which Harris, 59, “comes out of the convention with momentum and a significant bump in polling” and then “demolishes an incoherent and extremist Trump in the debate.”
“She sails into office in a landslide, bringing with her a Democratic House and Senate capable of reforming the filibuster to codify reproductive freedom – the winning issue she spent months campaigning on,” the memo reads.
A number of X users were not convinced by the memo.
“I can only assume that’s when the edibles kicked in,” National Review senior writer Noah Rothman tweeted, referencing the hypothetical about Harris besting Trump in a debate and cruising to victory in November.
“The good will bounce lasts right up to the point at which she’s expected to speak extemp at length, and the whole country says in unison, ‘oh, that’s right,’” he added.
Rothman’s point was echoed by a number of people on the social media platform, one of whom argued that it was “quite the fantasy” to believe that the “worst debater in the field from the Democratic 2020 primaries will ride to a landslide on the power of her debate performance.”
One user likened the lengthy document to a “rejected West Wing script,” and several people described it as “fan fiction” bordering on “parody.”
Another user suggested “Like it or Not, Kamala 2024” as a potential slogan for the Harris presidential campaign, based on the document.
“Ah, nothing makes me feel more confident in the state of our country than our next leader being pitched in a shared doc,” a concerned X user said.
Biden has maintained that he will not drop out of the race despite several polls showing he is in danger of losing to Trump after his poor debate performance last month.
