“What can be, unburdened by what has been” is a quote repeated throughout the years by Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris has gained a reputation for repeating this kind of flowery, philosophical language in speeches and tweets alike, making her as memeable as Donald Trump but in a different way.
Harris has used her “unburdened by what has been” line so much that it’s become something of a catchphrase for her, which has encouraged its use in other meme formats and blending with popular media.
What does ‘what can be, unburdened by what has been’ mean?
In the context of her quotes, Vice President Harris is making a statement about how our future can escape the bonds of our past. In one 2020 tweet, she used the phrase to speak on how Black and Asian girls can look to her and dream of one day achieving one of the highest offices in the nation, if not the presidency itself.
“When young children see someone who looks like them running for office, they see themselves and what they can be, unburdened by what has been,” she wrote.
In America’s past, the political ambitions of children of color were hampered by racism that was even worse than it is now. Harris, naturally, hopes that the prejudices of the old days no longer hold back dreams of the future.
What is the ‘unburdened by what has been’ meme?
Like with other Harris catchphrase memes, social media users have largely been applying this quote to popular meme formats like distracted boyfriend or the galaxy brain progression. Additionally, it has been remixed or shouted by well-known characters such as Yoda from Star Wars or Pepe the Frog.
The “what can be, unburdened by what has been” quote also frequently draws comparisons to her story about her mother and the comment about the coconut tree, ending in the statement “you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”
Unburdened by what has been meme origins
It’s difficult to pinpoint the very first time Vice President Kamala Harris used the catchphrase “what can be, unburdened by what has been,” but it’s thought to have started around the time she was a senator. The beginning of its use as a meme can be traced back to a video posted by the Twitter account RNC Research on December 17, 2023.
The video is a supercut of Harris’s speeches, with the tweet promising “four straight minutes of Kamala Harris being ‘unburdened.’”
While this tweet was likely meant to damage the Vice President’s reputation or at least make fun of her, it conversely contributed to her popularity both as a meme and potentially as a Democratic candidate for the 2024 race, should President Joe Biden decide to step aside.
Meme spread
One Jon Cooper of Twitter revived interest in the meme by reposting the supercut on June 28, 2024. The tweet now has over 12.1 million views and it quickly spread outside of the conservative bubble to reach the K-Hive and others on the left side of the political spectrum.
This was about when people started to reference the catchphrase via other popular memes and compare it to the coconut tree meme (which in itself spawned spinoffs, such as the recent coconut tree meme song trend taking over social media).
As the meme’s popularity grew into July, Twitter users spawned a “before and after,” or more accurately an “after and before” type joke, posting an image to represent “what can be” next to another representing “what has been.”
Examples
The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here to get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
