KAMALA HARRIS IN RUSSIAN MEDIA: GENDERED CHARACTER ASSASSINATION AND THE DELIGITIMIZATION OF POLITICAL FEMININITY IN AUTHORITARIAN DISCOURSE

Abstract

This article examines representations of Kamala Harris in Russian media during the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign to explore how character assassination functions in authoritarian contexts. Drawing on sociocultural approaches to character assassination and post-structuralist discourse theory, the study conceptualizes character attacks not only as strategies of reputational damage but also as discursive practices that reproduce normative hierarchies of gender and political legitimacy. The analysis demonstrates that Harris is represented through tropes of emotionality, domesticity, and personalized femininity, thereby depoliticizing her political agency. The findings also complicate interpretations of Russia’s conservatism by demonstrating that representations of Kamala Harris cannot be reduced to a coherent traditionalist ideology alone. Instead, they reflect a hybrid assemblage of authoritarian normativity, patriarchal gender expectations, postfeminist individualization, and residual Soviet moral frameworks. The article argues that character assassination in authoritarian media discourse functions less through direct ideological confrontation than through the symbolic regulation of legitimate political subjectivity.