The Memes of Political Discourse

It’s one thing for politicians to use memes and another to actually understand them

By sheer meme magic and synchronicity, two Republican US lawmakers shared memes on September 22 to make their policy points. Georgia’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Iowa’s Senator Jodi Ernst brought out the large printers to share their favorite internet memes with the public during their presentations. Greene, best known for her conspiracy theorizing and policy-by-reaction methods, brought several printouts of some pretty normie (read: basic), if misguided, memes, and Ernst presented a dated Uno meme which she called a “popular meme.”

It’s not the first time in congressional history that memes have made their way into the legislative branches, but any time this occurs it’s bound to raise some eyebrows. People rightly reacted to both these representative’s methods with some sort of shock and mild digital facepalming, but it’s concerning for several reasons beyond the reductionist lawmaking.