As my friend Quavo would say,
he does not walk it like he talks it.
Kamala Harris quoting Atlanta artist Quavo at her Atlanta rally
last night.
He was also there endorsing her,
campaigning for her and speaking as well as another chart
topping rapper,
Megan the Stallion, performing with her dancers clad in Democratic
blue.
NB CS Yamiche Alcindor flagged How at that rally you
can see here the swaying thousands were swag surfing.
That's a popular swaying dance.
Again, this is culture mixed with politics.
It is organic. That was not organized by the campaign.
The crowd spanned generations and races,
noted the Slate Reporter, who was there
with attendees, describing the rally as fun and invigorating,
words that haven't been associated with the Democratic Party much
lately.
Now, organizing and politics can be fun.
It's actually a kind of a strange part of the
Trump era,
if you think about it,
that so often the right has seemed at times more
upbeat
than the left and even the younger left,
which has plenty of energy but might not just be
present in our politics.
The right has dug into grievance.
Last night's rally, though, tapped into something else and energy,
inviting people into Harris's nascent campaign.
Kamala Harris and a key battleground course.
Georgia tonight and we'll see a performance from the rapper
Mega Megan the Stallion.
Megan the Stallion, a huge artist who's performed with Beyoncé
out of Texas.
We're about to make history with the 1st
female president. Rapper Quavo will take the stage and the
birth place of the culture.
It's also the same place to launch the first African
American woman to run for president.
Please give it up for Quavo
and Megan,
the birth place of Culture.
Culture also the name of Quavo's group,
Migos's first album and their second one.
Culture too. For the Culture is something you hear a
lot in Atlanta and around the whole country when we
talk about celebrating what Americans have created and shared.
And yes, culture can be for everyone.
The idea here is that culture will help reinforce and
fortify
Harris's politics.
This kind of campaigning is a contrast to what Trump
is offering,
even when he claims to care about minority issues like
today's widely panned and controversial remarks at the Black journalist
conference.
Hera, I should say Kamala Harris's allies.
Note the approach is also matched by a track record.
She was in Atlanta earlier this year,
not the campaign, not to get a promotion,
but to push gun safety laws with Quavo,
who spoke movingly about his nephew and bandmates tragic death
at the hands of gun violence.
That was an issue he invoked again last night.
If you hear anyone saying,
oh, this was just music or quote UN quote,
just fun, well, no, they mixed that in too.
And it was there if you were listening.
A lot of people in Atlanta around the country care
about gun safety laws.
Harris also hosted another Atlanta artist,
Lil Baby, at the White House years back to draw
attention to police brutality efforts.
So there is style and substance here
for those who can see it.
These are stories of history and the future here.
For those opening to learning about all these connections,
just as other generations had Dylan and Joplin and Woodstock,
well, today it's Megan, Beyoncé and Kendrick.
Democrats have actually been using Kendrick's anthem,
which came out this year,
not Like us, to skew MAGA as weird.
And when that song was actually played last night at
the rally,
many attendees were visibly pumped.
You can see one here holding a Harris sign and
getting down
in the blue, wrapping along wop,
wop, wop. I'm going to do my stuff
now. This was captured on the PBS channel coverage and
it literally went viral,
as they say in real time.
One person posting my boy on the PBS news stream
was going crazy.
Another adding you can't buy enthusiasm like this camel is
on a rocket to the moon.
Now that video has over 7 million views already in
under a day.
It's joining these other Kamala memes.
Here's how one person, a heat map news writer,
put it. Matthew Zeitling quote.
Every day a new John Ossoff is born.
Do you see the resemblance?
Well, that's it's up to the people to decide.
This is energy times culture
amplified at the speed of today's Internet.
Which, by the way, quickly identified the dancing enthusiastic Harris
fan you see there.
Turns out he's exactly the kind that young activists want
to be enthused the Democrats are engaged with.
His name is actually Parker Short.
He's president already of Georgia Young Democrats,
and he's been out and about working in the trenches
with candidates long before his accidental star turn
dancing at the Harris rally.
And as Parker Short was the star of this viral
day,
as mentioned, that video got 7 million views already and
growing.
You are the president of Georgia Young Democrats
and we saw the dance moves at the rally last
night.
Thanks for coming on the beat tonight.
Hey, thank you for having me.
It's always an honor to get to talk about how
important this election is and how we need to organize
the youth and,
you know, everything is at stake this year.
Yeah, a lot of people I think watching are interested
in what young people are thinking.
You've been very involved. We've got the photos of you
with some of the other officials as well as last
night.
Before we get into everything serious,
let's just start with you're enjoying the rally.
You clearly like that Kendrick song.
When did you then start finding out that
you went viral? Because this wasn't like you making your
own video.
This is like other people put this out.
Yeah,
well, it was funny because it was the PBS NewsHour
stream.
And I watched Newshour pretty regularly.
So I was everyone was texting me Parker.
Parker. But, you know, I'm actually lucky to be a
DNC delegate for Kamala Harris,
and I'm so excited to vote for her.
And our our group chats were
blowing up of all the Georgia Dems.
And, you know, a couple of my friends were on
the other side and they're,
you know, they just kept smiling at me.
I, you know, but the truth is I had the
energy and I'm excited.
And young people have the energy because we're excited to
win this election.
Yeah, we're going to win.
So take us again further into the vibe at the
rally,
This energy, what people are watching
what's happening out there. We've got the surf swag as
well
because it seems to be diverse,
young and old, different groups,
different identities. One thing we were talking about last night,
Brittany Cooper, a guest, you made the point.
This is everyone's invited. This is for everyone.
Someone who says, oh, I don't know that exact song
or I don't know that move.
The vibe seems to be,
well, come on in and try it out.
Not that it's some inside thing you,
you're not welcome to. Did it feel like that last
night?
Well, you know what? That's what the Democratic Party is.
We're a big tent, and we're here to let people
in and lift people up.
I got involved in Democratic politics because I lost my
dad as a little kid.
I saw the impact that Democratic politics can have for
people.
I was on Social Security.
I his labor union, you know,
helped save my family from hundreds of $1000 in medical
debt.
You know, Brian Kemp refuses to expand Medicaid in Georgia.
And when he changed my Medicaid standards,
I lost my health care.
So this is very real for me.
And everybody in that room,
everybody in this movement knows that we're in it together
and we're in it together to win because there's so
much at stake.
You know, no matter what music you like or what
dance moves,
you know, we all want our kids to have a
better future.
And that's that's why I'm here.
And I will say, before I started singing Not Like
Us,
I was, I had the same energy for Brick House
and
some ludicrous songs. I, I was enjoying myself all night.
The energy was electric because we're excited.
Parker as you may know,
Ludicrous was all about grassroots organizing the album.
Word of mouth, right is how you get the word
out.