Claim that Kamala Harris is using slogan from Nazi Germany in campaign is false
No evidence that Kamala Harris is using the specific phrase ‘Strength Through Joy’ in her bid to become the next U.S. president
CLAIM
Posts across social media claim that Kamala Harris has adopted a Nazi slogan, ‘Strength Through Joy’, for her presidential election campaign.
BACKGROUND
Posts emerged on social media in August claiming that Kamala Harris has been using messaging centred around the slogan ‘Strength Through Joy’.
One post on X by Ryan Fournier on August 18 says: “Kamala’s “Strength Through Joy” messaging derives from the Nazis. Imagine that.” Fournier is a conservative activist and political commentator and is also the co-founder and national chairman of the youth group Students for Trump.
His post also has a screenshot from an AI model, where the question ‘Where does the campaign of “strength through joy” come from?’ was inputted. The answer given by the AI, according to the screenshot, explains how the slogan originated in Nazi Germany.
An earlier post on Instagram on August 16 features a video by the actor Robert Davi telling his 57,000 followers about how he “recently found out” that Kamala Harris was using the slogan Strength Through Joy in her campaign. He goes on to talk about how it “was a Nazi slogan from 1933 all the way through the whole World War Two”.
He says: “Think about that, read about it … Strength Through Joy, the Democratic party’s slogan.” Davi urges his followers to spread the message and ends with: “What the Democrats have accused Trump and MAGA of is what they’re doing. You understand? Wake the people up.”
The actor Robert Davi, who had roles in The Goonies, Die Hard, and Licence to Kill, is now a high-profile conservative who backed Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. He has spoken at Republican events and regularly posts pro-Trump material on his social media profiles.
In the caption, Davi simply featured the link to the Wikipedia page for Strength Through Joy. The page details how NS Gemeinschaft Kraft durch Freude (the Nazi Party’s Strength Through Joy community leisure programme) was set up in 1933 to promote Nazism at home and abroad, and featured organised events, tours, and propaganda materials.
The organisation became the world’s largest tour operator, according to this article by Der Spiegel, and produced travel brochures complete with swastikas and idealised images of German holiday destinations and the people who visit them. It resulted in a major boom in travel within Germany before the outbreak of the Second World War.
METHOD
The phrase ‘Strength Through Joy’ was indeed part of a Nazi programme, but we needed to see if it is being used by the Kamala Harris presidential campaign.
An advanced search on X for posts containing the phrase from the Harris campaign or from Harris herself does not yield any results.
The Harris-Walz campaign has put forward the theme of ‘joy’ since campaigning for the pair began, particularly during the Democratic National Convention in August.
An opinion piece published by the Miami Herald defined Kamala Harris’s campaign as “one filled with joy”, while New York Magazine’s columnist, Errol Louis, wrote an analysis titled “Kamala Harris and the New Politics of Joy“.
The New York Times described the Democratic Party in seven key words after the DNC, and included ‘joy’ among the words that described the dominant mood.
Bill Clinton, during his address to the DNC, told the crowd: “We need Kamala Harris, the president of joy, to lead us.”
While no one slogan has yet become the rallying cry for the Harris-Walz ticket, some other catchphrases have been used in the campaign, such as ‘When we fight, we win’ and ‘We’re not going back’.
Despite the messaging around the theme of joy as part of the Harris-Walz campaign, there is no evidence that Kamala Harris is using the specific phrase ‘Strength Through Joy’ in her bid to become the next U.S. president.
RATING
The claim that Kamala Harris has adopted a Nazi phrase as her campaign slogan is untrue.
SOURCES
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: Kamala’s “Strength Through Joy” messaging derives from the Nazi’s. [Accessed 2 Sep. 2024].
Instagram. (2024). Robert Davi on Instagram: ‘https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_Through_Joy’. [online] [Accessed 2 Sep. 2024].
Harms, F. (2007). Nazi-Propaganda: Wellness unterm Hakenkreuz. [online] Spiegel.de. [Accessed 2 Sep. 2024].
Miami Herald (2024). At DNC, Democrats were joyful. What a contrast to Florida men Trump and DeSantis | Opinion. [online] [Accessed 2 Sep. 2024].
Louis, E. (2024). Kamala Harris and the New Politics of Joy. [online] nymag.com Intelligencer. [Accessed 2 Sep. 2024].
Scott, A.O. (2024). ‘Joy,’ ‘Freedom,’ ‘Goldilocks’: Kamala Harris’s Democratic Party in 7 Keywords. The New York Times. [online] 23 Aug. [Accessed 2 Sep. 2024].
PBS NewsHour (2024). WATCH: Bill Clinton speaks at 2024 Democratic National Convention | 2024 DNC Night 3. YouTube. [Accessed 2 Sep. 2024].