If you thought millennial outreach to voters couldn’t get worse than Hillary Clinton telling people to “Pokémon Go to the polls,” this weekend Dr. jill stein proved you wrong.
On Sunday the Green Party presidential candidate, who is polling at only three percent, decided to bring back a meme that most of the internet would rather forget:
The killing of Harambe 3 months ago today reminds us to be a voice for the voiceless. https://t.co/wMZpWlLicY pic.twitter.com/8WtlDhRlIy
— Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) August 28, 2016
Twitter immediately pounced—many people pointed out that in commemorating Harambe, Stein ignored the fact that yesterday was also the anniversary of important human civil rights milestones like the March on Washington and the killing of Emmett Till:
Advisor: Today is the anniversary of the March on Washington.
Jill Stein: We should tweet abt Harambe anniversary. https://t.co/AyUfylo6vD— Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) August 28, 2016
Others noted that Stein wasn’t helping her own sagging poll numbers—five percent of Americans say they would vote Harambe for president, which means the dead gorilla is more popular than Stein herself:
Harambe has more support for President than you https://t.co/jTSWUpxnKs
— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) August 28, 2016
Mostly, however, the internet just had a lot of fun at both Stein and Harambe’s expense:
https://twitter.com/_grendan/status/769995738478678016
This a brilliant play for the massive weird twitter demographic. https://t.co/8793ZeOdkN
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) August 28, 2016
https://twitter.com/timothy_stanley/status/769985764235108352
https://twitter.com/adambvary/status/769983861262585857
Stein went on the defensive this morning, blaming the media for covering her social media presence more than her work with humans:
100+ journalists replied to my tweet on Harambe. Where were they when I called to end racism & police violence? 🤔 https://t.co/XbskYkTdBe
— Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) August 29, 2016
Why'd media pay more attention to 1 tweet on Harambe than my entire visit to Baltimore to talk about ending poverty? pic.twitter.com/78tdtep783
— Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) August 29, 2016
But Twitter decided not to take policy advice from someone who thinks Wi-Fi is frying kids’ brains:
https://twitter.com/alex_ritter13/status/770245162215829504
https://twitter.com/UtaJohansdottir/status/770245796881129472
https://twitter.com/dlrowsreggir/status/770246663268995072
Harambe (and apes in general) are actually part of the Green Party platform—the group advocates for primates to have “legal rights and protected status as living beings.”
