But what does it actually mean to be “brat”?  

The best summary of bratdom might come from my Free Press colleague River Page, who quips, “Brat Girl Summer is just women acting like gay guys.” On TikTok, Charli XCX herself described the quintessential brat as “just that girl who is a little messy and maybe says dumb things sometimes, who feels herself but then also maybe has a breakdown but parties through it. It is honest, blunt, and a little bit volatile”—which maybe explains why she felt it appropriate to bestow the moniker on Kamala. But it’s harder to see the VP in Charli’s official song of the Brat Girl Summer, “365,” which describes a lifestyle defined by clubbing from dusk till dawn, decked out in slime-colored clothing and sustained by a steady diet of self-regard and cocaine. ...

All of this makes it that much more remarkable that Kamala—who is already vulnerable to allegations that she’s a “DEI candidate” who doesn’t deserve her power and influence, and whose Republican opponent is possibly one of the brattiest men on the planet—would publicly align her campaign with an archetype defined by her sense of entitlement to things she has done nothing to merit.

And yet, here we are—with the Democratic Party apparatus seemingly not far behind.