Kamala Harris makes iconic Simpsons reference during surprise Comic-Con appearance

US vice president and favourite to be the Democrats’ presidential nominee for November’s election, Kamala Harris, is continuing to ride the waves of popular culture as part of her campaign – following up on all her Charli XCX and brat posting, and the launch of her TikTok account, with an appearance at San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) and a reference to The Simpsons.

Fans of the long-running animated series have already claimed it has made yet another successful "prediction", what with the season 11 episode “Bart to the Future” seeing Lisa Simpson become president and say she has “inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump”.

She’s also shown wearing a purple suit and pearl necklace, with Harris wearing a similar outfit recently.

Now, at the popular California fan convention this week, Harris made a surprise virtual appearance during a Simpsons panel, with the show’s creator Matt Groening introducing a clip coming from a “super fan”.

In the video, a laughing Harris reads from an iPad: “Our country should move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.”

It’s a quote from “Treehouse of Horror VII” from 1996, in which the aliens Kang and Kodos impersonate that year’s presidential election candidates, Bill Clinton (for the Democrats) and Bob Dole (for the Republicans).

When the imposter Clinton addresses a hall full of Springfield residents, he says the aforementioned line, and that “as a young boy” he “dreamed of being a baseball”.

And the SDCC appearance has gone down well on social media, with one claiming her campaign team is “killing it” and another describing it as “amazeballs”.

For comparison, JD Vance – Republican candidate Donald Trump’s running mate – continues to deal with an unfortunate (and unproven) meme involving a couch and a latex glove…

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