In February 2016, the Washington Post
characterized the presidential primaries as “the most-memed election in
U.S. history.” During the election year, meme-ing related to the major
candidates became hugely popular and engaged various groups of people
who were not ordinarily involved in bipartisan political processes. As
brief, to the point, and quickly modifiable visual-textual messages,
Internet memes were a particularly apt way to illustrate the most
contested hot-button issues that emerged during the 2016 presidential
race. This article considers the phenomenon of meme-ing in relation to
both the Republican and Democratic campaigns. In particular, it focuses
on memes that called attention to the candidates’ contradictory or
incongruous statements critiquing their policy positions. The article
demonstrates the ways in which memes spoke to the intersection of
electoral activism and cultural representations in several ways: they
enabled users to rapidly take a stand on and react to developing
political events in real time; they provided alternative parallel
discourses to mainstream media viewpoints; and they enabled mobilizing
voters outside of official political discourses. During the 2016
campaign, meme-ing served as an example of a politico-cultural discourse
that exemplified the unusual election year in ways that conventional
political analysis alone was not able to capture.