How Donald Trump Used Memes to Become President in 2016--Part 1 · 4:58pm Nov 19th, 2020
(A Transcript of the Youtube Video of the Same Name by Emplemon)
How did he do it? How did Donald Trump win the presidency in the first place? In this period of uncertainty as to his reelection, some are wondering how he even got here. You're telling me that the man who shaved Vince McMahon on live tv and got stunned by Stone-Cold Steve Austin at Wrestlemania a few years ago became the elected leader of the most powerful nation on earth?
Now, there are many rumors on the left about how he did it. Collusions, Russians, Neo-Fascism, Democratic party incompetence, Satanic rituals, or the exploitation of the Electoral College. But I'm not going to talk about any of that.
Before I go any further, I need to give full disclosure: this is NOT political. I understand that the figure I'm speaking about is the most controversial figure of the 21st century, but this is not about policies. This is analyzing one man's rise to political power. So you can make all the bold claims you want in the comments. But no one will give a crap. You'll just waste your time.
This is not about politics. This is about MEMES!
Now, with that said, you're probably expecting an analysis of how 4Chan, the Cult of Kek, the formation of the Alt-Right, and Pepe the Frog gave him the election. But that's not what this is about either. I really hate to say it, but Pepe didn't cause Trump to win. I know it makes for a really fun narrative to pretend that's what happened, but it's just too far-fetched. The reality is that 4Chan is not singlehandedly powerful enough to sway an election.
/pol is the driving force behind 4Chan's political aura. The board averaged around 130,000 users in the months preceding the 2016 election. Now, assuming that all of those users are of voting age, and all of them voted for Trump (which are two very lofty assumptions), that's 130,000 votes on Trump's side. So how do you account for the other 62 and a half million?
Obviously, it’s absurd to think spamming pictures of frogs can have that big an impact. Memes are just dumb pictures with funny captions, and there’s no way they can influence us that much in the real world.
… OR CAN THEY?
What is a Meme?
Hey Vsauce! Michael here. Hey what’s up guys, it’s Scarce here. I say hey (Hey!) What a wonderful kind of day! Hey… that’s pretty good!
See, when most people think of memes, they think of just that--funny pictures with impact font. Now, that’s not entirely true. The word meme was first coined by Richard Dawkins as a combination of the English word gene and the Greek word mimea. It essentially means an element of human culture that gets passed on from person to person. Memes can be words, spoken or printed. They can be events, people, places, characters, both fictional and real. Memes can be anything and can come from anywhere. This is evident in the extreme variety of memes we have today.
Now, with that said, what’s to stop just anything--say, an alarm clock that flashes the word penis--from becoming a meme? That’s where you come in. People decide. And they do it subconsciously. It usually has to do with quantifying prior exposure to the source and repeating it to make it familiar to the audience. It can be an annoying part of a song from the early 2010s. It can be a stupid catchphrase from a tv show in the 90s. Or a dumb childhood cartoon character, wherever you grew up in. But the meme should be dormant in the back of your mind, already familiar with it.
Then, when some event triggers a catalyst to break out the meme into the mainstream, the meme spreads until you begin using it. At that point, you have been infected and will invariably infect others with the new meme. In order for a meme to spread, however, it must have a means of spreading--which happens to be the human mind.
Once again, psychology is at work here. Memes are inherently appealing to us because of how our brains operate. Terms like heuristics and chunking dictate that our brains handle information through small snippets, chunks of information. And memes provide this in spades. Through a meme, it is possible to condense a complicated topic into a single image, character, or phrase. Just look at the WW2 Portrayed By Spongebob videos on YouTube. Simply put, a meme is the fastest way to put an idea in someone's head.
So now that we’ve defined memes, we can go back to the question of the blog: How did Trump use them to become president? In order to answer that question, we must first see how anyone becomes president.
In the United States, you must meet the bare constitutional requirements of 35 years of age, being a legal citizen, and have lived for 14 years in the country. You must also be an expert on history, law, and debate. It is paramount that an aspiring candidate first serve in local office or in the military until they become a Senator, Representative, or General. It is only at this time when you can even think of running for president, which involves up to 18 arduous months of fundraising, traveling, polling, marketing, public speaking, and debating, in order to persuade enough people to vote for you to become the nominee of one of the two major political parties. At that point, you need to hope and pray that about more than half the voters like you more than the other guy. And finally, if that happens, you can become president of the United States.
Going into 2015, Trump met the bare constitutional requirements.
...Maybe we’re going to have to approach this from a top-down perspective. So screw all that dumb stuff for nerds; how do you really become president?
If you ever went to school, (which is a pretty lofty assumption) you’re probably familiar with the multiple-choice test. Normally (if you’re an absolute nerd) you had to actually study and know the material so you can pick the correct answer choice every time. But technically, studying isn’t necessary. All you need to get a good grade on a multiple-choice test is bubble in the correct answer. For this reason, it is possible to score an average of 25% on a multiple-choice test, even if you know none of the material on it; just pick A every time. For true/false tests, the odds are even more in your favor with a 50% score. Of course, schools have caught onto this, which is why 50% is a failing grade. But in elections, 50% can be enough to win you a candidate. So let's apply this logic to a presidential election.
In order for Trump to become president, he had to follow these three steps. #1: Become easily recognizable by the American public. #2: Run as a Democrat or a Republican. #3: Have about 50% of people vote for you. Partisan politics have become an epidemic. You could host the most awkward and clumsy campaign ever (look no further than Joe Biden) and about half the voters will still vote for you because you have a D or an R next to your name. But in order for a long-shot like Trump to win, he would need to rely on all these steps. And he did it using memes.
I’ll describe the process of his entire path in terms of a virus, because that’s the same way memes spread--hence the term going viral. Plus, ah, topical modern events.
Stage 1: Attachment (The phage attaches to the cell of the host)
Donald Trump started out as just another wealthy New York City businessman. So what made him different? Trump just liked to put his name on stuff. A lot of stuff. Trump made it clear from early on that his goal was not to build luxury apartments, but to turn himself into a brand.
There isn't that much separating a brand from a meme. They're functionally identical. They compress a complicated thought or business into a single recognizable image or phrase. Brands are just corporate memes. And it just so happened that Trump was in the perfect position to become a living meme. Trump is a verb which means to defeat by doing better. Coincidentally, Trump's name represented the power, prestige, and dominance associated with a wealthy businessman.
In 1978 Trump commenced building Trump Tower, a 58-story skyscraper in Manhattan. The location of Manhattan is important because it is the financial and cultural center of the biggest city in North America. The Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center, and now Trump Tower. This led millions to wonder: Who is this Trump fellow?
Stage 2: Penetration (The viral DNA enters the cell)
In order for a meme to spread, it must have a means of spreading. Today, of course, this means the internet. But back in the days of television, this meant network television. CBS, ABC, and NBC, which all had their headquarters stationed in Manhattan, were all a few blocks away from Trump Tower. It would be television that would propel him from businessman to celebrity.
Trump began appearing on broadcasts around 1980. At first, it was just a few interviews. Then it turned into cameos in tv shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and movies like The Little Rascals. Then he appeared in ads for many different products. Then he got his own tv show, The Apprentice. Then he was a major celebrity star and rival to Vince McMahon in the WWE.
From the perspective of the networks, they were just exploiting a readily-available resource for attention. Donald Trump was just inherently interesting to the American public. But from Trump's perspective, he was building himself up to become unforgettable in the public eye. While most billionaires try to avoid the spotlight, Trump reveled in it. People just kept seeing this bold, confident, rich man on their television. It wasn’t so much about who he was, but what he represented. And he represented the unbridled strength and spirit of capitalism that was so rampant in the 80s. You didn’t have to know anything about Trump to recognize that he was rich, tough, and successful. And many Americans recognized and admired him as a symbol of wealth and power.
Ice Cube said it himself: “Well, you know, Donald Trump is what Americans love. Donald Trump is what Americans aspire to be. Rich, powerful, do what you wanna do, say what you wanna say, be who you wanna be. That’s… the American Dream. So he looks like a boss to everybody, and Americans love to have a boss. So, you know, that’s his appeal to me.”
Trump stayed consistently relevant in American media for 20 years afterwards. Step one of the process was complete. He had become easily recognizable by the public.
Step 3: Biosynthesis (Phage DNA replicates)
Now Trump was actually ready to run for president, which he had to do as either a Democrat or a Republican. But which one would give him the greatest chance of winning? Trump’s historical political affiliation is actually quite interesting, and very few know about it.
In the 80s, Trump was actually regarded as more of a Democrat. In 1987 he registered as a Republican, and remained that way for about a decade. Then in 1999, he joined the Independent Reform Party, where he tried to run for president. (That’s right, the Simpsons had a historical precedent in their prediction. He had launched an exploratory campaign for the 2000 election, 17 years before he became the most politically controversial figure in the country. He ended up dropping out of the primaries, mostly due to party infighting. It’s interesting nonetheless.) Then in 2001, he identified as a Democrat again. In an unearthed interview taken on March 21, 2004, he said, “Well, you would be shocked if I said in many cases I identify more as a Democrat.” Finally, in 2009, he registered as a Republican again.
Now, an average observer looking at this would say Trump is a flip-flopper who can’t make up his mind on issues. But it makes much more sense when you compare these changes of affiliation to whoever the president was at the time. Trump’s party affiliation has almost always been contrary to the party of the acting president. And this was intentional. Trump was playing towards a theory in modern politics called The Political Pendulum.
Not since George Bush in 1992 has one party won more than three times in a row. In fact, every president since then, until Trump, served for two terms and was succeeded by the candidate for the opposing party. So Trump was positioning himself to give him the greatest advantage if he was to consider running. And after Obama was elected in 2008, completing the Democratic trifecta of the Presidency, Senate majority, and House majority, Trump’s future was clear: He had to run as a Republican.
This also ultimately made the most practical sense for him. Trump was aging, and so were his admirers from the 80s. And older people tend to vote Republican, so all he had to do was give them what they wanted.
Huh. Genius.
If only it was used for good............
🤔
Trump was also helped along by two factors;
1. The polling was spectacularly off, and as a result hidden Trump voters were not spotted.
2. His votes piled up in all the correct places. Clinton's extra votes were in places she was already guaranteed to win. Interestingly, this happened in reverse in 2020.
I think I saw a YouTube version of this somewhere.