by aspenmayer | 2025-07-27 11:30:12+00:00
"The left can't meme" is just one instance of so-called "meme magic" that came good, if good is what you see in the enterprise or if the particular ends justified the memes.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-left-cant-meme

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/meme-magic

https://unherd.com/2021/08/why-the-left-cant-meme/ | https://web.archive.org/web/20210924231415/https://unherd.co...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/trumps-occult-online-support... | https://web.archive.org/web/20170125155034/http://motherboar...

As for me? I am beside myself. I view the content as part performance, part farce, all kayfabe. Trump et al learned from the best:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation#A_World_Wit...

> In Russia, Vladimir Putin and his cabinet of political technologists create mass confusion. Vladislav Surkov uses ideas from art to turn Russian politics into a bewildering piece of theatre. Donald Trump employs the same techniques in his presidential campaign by using language from Occupy Wall Street. Curtis asserts that Trump "defeated journalism" by rendering its fact-checking abilities irrelevant.

> The American Left's attempt to resist Trump on the internet had no effect. In fact, they were just feeding the social media corporations who valued their many additional clicks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Surkov

> Vladislav Yuryevich Surkov (Russian: Владислав Юрьевич Сурков; born 21 September 1964) is a Russian politician. He was First Deputy Chief of the Russian Presidential Administration from 1999 to 2011, during which time he was often viewed as the main ideologist of the Kremlin who proposed and implemented the concept of sovereign democracy in Russia. From December 2011 until May 2013, Surkov served as the Russian Federation's Deputy Prime Minister. After his resignation, Surkov returned to the Presidential Executive Office and became a personal adviser of Vladimir Putin on relationships with Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Ukraine.

> BBC documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis credits Surkov's blend of theater and politics with keeping Putin, and Putin's chosen successors, in power since 2000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_democracy

> Whilst talking about sovereign democracy in 2006, Mikhail Kasyanov said that "... the aims of this doctrine are quite clear: the concentration and holding of political power and property at any cost. The consequences of this are already evident, including the glorification of populism, the steady destruction of private and public institutions and the departure from the principles of the law, democracy, and the free market."

> United States Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried (in office 2005–2009) stated in a 2007 interview:

> > I get nervous when people put labels in front of democracy. Sovereign democracy, managed democracy, people's democracy, socialist democracy, Aryan democracy, Islamic democracy—I am not a big fan of adjectives. Managed democracy doesn't sound like democracy. Sovereign democracy strikes me as meaningless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guided_democracy

> Guided democracy, also called directed democracy and managed democracy, is a formally democratic government that functions as a de facto authoritarian government or, in some cases, as an autocratic government. Such hybrid regimes are legitimized by elections, but do not change the state's policies, motives, and goals.

> In a guided democracy, the government controls elections such that the people can exercise democratic rights without truly changing public policy. While they follow basic democratic principles, there can be major deviations towards authoritarianism. Under managed democracy, the state's continuous use of propaganda techniques, such as through manufacturing consent, prevents the electorate from having a significant impact on policy.

> The concept is also related to semi-democracy, also known as anocracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ve_Got_No_Strings

> Down where the Volga flows

> There's a Russian rendez-vous

> Where me and Ivan go

> But I'd rather go with you, hey

> There are no strings on me

Be well, anon.