The Meme-ification of Everything
Initially, they planned to continue with dinner. More than a week later, I still can’t quite believe that was the first impulse. If anyone should understand the gravity of someone attempting to assassinate Trump, members of his cabinet, or journalists, it should be the White House Correspondents’ Association. Yet somehow, until law enforcement intervened, the plan was to keep the party going.
Then again, perhaps the WHCD understands the public’s mood better than I do. Because the events at the dinner became meme-ified in real time. In a room full of reporters, where everyone had a phone, images and video from the room burst all over the internet in real time. There was Salad Guy, the wine-stealing ladies, and Cheryl Hines. Within hours, memes had seemingly overtaken the conversation around the shooting, a trend that has continued. By Tuesday, comedian Josh Johnson had recorded and released a 60-minute comedy set on the shooting on YouTube. (I’ll admit it. I watched, and I laughed. Johnson is adept at taking on how absurd this all is.)
America has become so desensitized to political violence and gun violence that what we now understand to be an assassination attempt against Trump and multiple members of his cabinet has become a punchline. A country where every time our president isn’t seen for a couple of days, terminally online people start openly hoping it means he’s died.
Social media has also been flooded with false conspiracy theories claiming the attack was staged. Folks on the left and right seemed to believe this, partly because Trump and MAGA influencers immediately pivoted to the shooting as a reason why Trump’s White House ballroom was a necessity. The argument makes no sense whatsoever, but that hasn’t stopped MAGA from going hard trying to convince us anyway.
Trump is flailing. The sympathy and goodwill you’d expect to see after an incident like this is non-existent. Early polling indicates that most of the public doesn’t buy the ballroom argument, rejecting it 2-1. He’s spent this week attempting to get Jimmy Kimmel fired again (with Melania’s help) and indicting James Comey for – I kid you not – posting a meme. Both reruns of past failures that don’t even qualify as Trump’s greatest hits.
This is the political and media environment that Trump wanted and helped create. He and his MAGA movement have spent more than a decade sowing distrust, inciting violence, and attempting to manipulate both traditional and social media. If people online routinely make jokes wishing for Trump’s death, if they believe he faked an assassination attempt to garner sympathy for himself, if they can’t be bothered to care that the shooting happened in the first place – well, Trump only has himself to blame. He created this dystopian meme-ified hell that we all now live in.
The monster that Trump created has turned its might on him. Now he knows (or he would if he had any self-awareness) how the rest of us feel.
ICYMI
No Attorney General Can Deliver on Trump’s Retaliation Agenda (If You Can Keep It)
Iran’s Meme War Against Trump Ushers In a Future of ‘Slopaganda’ (New York Times, gift link)
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Coda
Thanks as always for reading and supporting Ctrl Alt-Right Delete. I’ll see you again next week. Same bat time. Same bat channel.
My mind hasn't really been on that altercation. I don't know if a gun was even fired. Maybe it was. Glad he wasn't killed.
It's unfortunate he decided to ruin his life. What I really find offensive is the White House Correspondents Dinner actually happened.
This administration despises the press. Their colleagues have been arrested. They get insulted by Trump and his press secretary and they invite him to this event. They decided to have the dinner and wear pocket squares for press freedom.
I respect what a lot of journalists do. I don't respect the institution because they decided to be complicit