Trolling Democracy

If you want to know where Republican politics is heading, look at the memes. Since the start of its second term, the Trump administration and its G.O.P. surrogates have been crashing out online.

Like an unhinged Zoomer, they’ve relentlessly posted sadistic memes about policy decisions in the style of social media trends. A highlight reel of ICE arrests set to “Ice Ice Baby.” An A.S.M.R.-style video that features people in shackles boarding a deportation flight. An image of a woman being arrested, but rendered in the style of a Hayao Miyazaki movie. The vice president has threatened his critics with deportation via a GIF image. One Republican congressman even suggested that an undocumented migrant be thrown out of a helicopter, “Pinochet” style. When faced with criticism over one such taunting post, Kaelan Dorr, a White House press aide, announced: “The arrests will continue. The memes will continue.”

It’s safe to say that President Trump and the Republican Party are deploying a new form of political propaganda, updating a dark art for the platform era. But it’s also a signal that a new kind of political style is enveloping conservatism — one that is ruthless, inflammatory and designed for maximum viral reach.

It’s a style of politics that has been honed by the party’s young, extremist fringes for years. With Mr. Trump’s blessing, or indifference perhaps, this faction is emerging as one of the most influential forces in the party. These radicalized conservatives, some of whom are working as junior staffers and political operatives across the G.O.P., are showing us the future of conservatism, one demented post at a time.

Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign built a coalition of internet-adjacent figures, from the tech elite to podcasters, streamers, gamers, anti-woke comedians, influencers and beyond. His big tent is reflective of the so-called fusionism being attempted by the conservative movement. Curtis Yarvin, one of the new right’s leading voices, has described this ecosystem as the “very online soup” from which the Trump administration is largely taking direction.

The key ingredient to this online soup is extremism: from nativism to racial science, to casual neo-Nazism and textbook misogyny. Presented to followers via livestreams, memes and X posts, this deluge of far-right content has been called “slopulism” — a vibes-based politics designed for social media and born from social media. These vibes, of course, are harsh. They’re anti-democratic. And they’re increasingly being embodied in the presence of figures staffing the second Trump administration.