Why the ‘Comrade Kamala’ meme is popular among Latino diaspora communities

In Latino diaspora communities across the country, a question is being asked: Is Kamala Harris really a communist?

According to Factchequeado, the largest Spanish-language fact-checking company in the United States, the vice president has been the subject of numerous false claims that she is a socialist or communist since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.

Experts say these claims exploit the “real fears” of some voters fleeing repression in countries like Cuba and Venezuela.

In a viral video, Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz appear to be posing for a selfie in front of a sign of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, a far-left group.

This video is fake. The background was edited by a group of Donald Trump supporters called the Dilley Meme Team.

Their original post had more than 420,000 views, but it was shared by multiple Spanish accounts — and reposted offline.

“There was this suspicion everywhere: ‘Is this person a communist?’” Evelyn Pérez-Verdía, a cultural strategist from South Florida, told the BBC.

She was listening to the Spanish-language radio station La Nueva Poderosa in Miami when she heard the host discussing the false meme.

“Do you see them standing in front of that picture? They are not ashamed of who they are,” the host said.

She contacted the station to point out that the video was fake. The hosts later said on air that they wanted to clarify that the story was “not true” but that it “doesn’t take away from the fact that Kamala is a Marxist.”

There are nearly 36.2 million Latino voters eligible to vote in the United States, accounting for about 14.7% of the total US electorate, and many live in key swing states like Nevada and Arizona, making them a coveted demographic for both campaigns.

They’re not a homogeneous group of voters, but historically, Latinos tend to support Democrats. In 2020, 44% voted for Joe Biden, compared to just 16% for Trump. But polls show Republicans have made gains this election cycle, with a variety of factors cited including the economy, immigration and abortion rights.

And for some immigrants, concerns about America today reflect their past experiences back home.

Experts note that political messages warning of “socialism” or “communism” are particularly popular in communities with large Cuban and Venezuelan populations, such as in South Florida.

Samantha Barrios, a Venezuelan-American living in Miami, Florida and voting Democratic, said these foreigners are particularly vulnerable to misinformation about communism because of the trauma they experienced fleeing persecution.

She accused the Spanish right-wing media of using these terms to “threaten the people of Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua” because “the main reason why we left our countries, trying to leave these regimes”.

For some, their criticism of Democrats stems from the view that the US government has not responded firmly enough to political repression in Cuba or Venezuela.

But Ms Barrio is wary of how these legitimate concerns are being exploited through “false claims” that Kamala Harris herself is a communist.

Ms. Pérez-Verdía agreed, but she also criticized the Democratic campaign for not doing enough to address their concerns.

“Don’t laugh at people’s fears. That’s really disrespectful. People have real fears, they come to the United States, they leave everything behind. If they have doubts, you should address their doubts.”

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, said not all complaints were directed specifically at Latinos.

And the organization found that right-wing and pro-Trump actors and influencers have been promoting “socialist fears” since 2020.

But while Joe Biden was accused of being a communist when he ran for president, Factchequeado founder Laura Zommer said their fact-checkers had “never” seen such a volume of AI and manipulated images before.

Some of this misinformation has been spread by Trump himself or his high-ranking supporters.

Elon Musk, who has supported Trump, posted a fake image of Kamala Harris in a red uniform emblazoned with the communist hammer and sickle symbol, with the caption “Kamala vowed to be a communist dictator from day one. Can you believe she wore that outfit!?”

It has over 83.9 million views. A reverse image search shows it is the earliest image posted on X.

Donald Trump shared an AI image of Harris speaking to a communist crowd, garnering at least 81.5 million views on X, but this isn’t the first time the image has been posted.

According to a report prepared for the BBC by the DDIA, posts linking Harris to communism actually spread online after the presidential debate.

During the debate, Donald Trump called Kamala Harris and her father “Marxists” and implied she would turn the United States into “a stronger Venezuela” through her immigration policies.

Following the debate, “Marxista” trended on social media and Google searches for “Marxist” in the United States spiked 1,000% within 17 hours.

Factchequeado said the most searched question in Spanish after the debate was: “Who is Kamala Harris’ father?”

DDIA said two claims in particular gained traction in the week following the presidential debate. Among them, a fabricated document falsely claiming that Kamala Harris was a member of the Russian Communist Party went viral, according to Meta. Another claim that Harris was “Kamarada [Comrade] “Kamala,” comes from Trump’s speech in which he described her as a “comrade communist.”

BBC Verify traced the image of the party membership card to a website that allows people to forge communist party documents.

The membership number, stamp and other details on the card are identical to the sample on the party membership card making instructions website.

Posts sharing the fake images, first shared in August, have been viewed more than half a million times.

The Democratic Party is not a socialist party, nor does it claim to support communism. But some prominent members, such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have described their political views as “democratic socialist.”

As a California senator, Harris co-sponsored Sanders’ Medicare for All bill, which would have brought a single-payer health care system to the United States. She has since said she no longer supports a single-payer health care system, which would have abolished private insurance companies.

She never supported communist policies, such as the abolition or confiscation of private property.

Kamala Harris’s plan to crack down on “price gouging” at supermarkets has been cited in Spanish social media posts as “communist”. Mr Musk claimed it would mean “empty shelves, like in Venezuela”.

Her proposal, which includes asking the trade commission to investigate price increases that are far higher than production costs, stands in stark contrast to widespread price controls in Cuba and Venezuela that have been partly blamed for severe food shortages.

But for some voters who have fled those countries, their fear lies in anything they feel remotely resembles the policies of the country they came from.

Duke Machado, who runs the Latino Strikeforce Facebook page for the Texas Republican Party, said he fears that if Democrats win, the country will be on the path to communism.

“If we are not careful, we will slide into Cuba and Venezuela. Their ultimate goal is to destroy capitalism.”

Asked whether it was responsible to share his fears that Democrats could turn the United States into a communist state with his followers, including Latino exiles who have fled persecution, he said: “It’s not irresponsible at all. I see it as a duty.”

With additional reporting by Kayleen Devlin from BBC Verify