The politics of memes: How Biden and Trump are fighting each other on the internet

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By MEG KINNARD and MICHELLE L. PRICE (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Whether it’s a grinning Joe Biden as “Dark Brandon” or Donald Trump’s face superimposed onto a scene from HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” both presidential campaigns this year have embraced digital memes, the lingua franca of social media.

The campaigns of the Democratic president and Republican former president enthusiastically create and share content trying to shape the narratives around both men. Biden’s campaign even recently posted a job seeking a manager of meme pages.

With tens of millions of people using social media as a primary information source, the battle of memes could affect who wins in November. Many Americans say they’re not excited about a Biden-Trump rematch and growing digital habits make it harder to reach people through traditional spaces for political advertising like print publications or television.

Memes can be an edgier, faster way to get a political point across than a block of text or a lengthy video. But online misfires have hurt candidates and created major controversies.

Here’s a look at how memes are shaping presidential politics.

First: What is a meme?

Memes have been around longer than you think.

The term “meme” was coined in 1976 by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who used it to refer to a piece of information that is imitated and shared, be it a slogan, a behavior, an idea.

With the rise of internet culture, digital memes have skyrocketed in popularity. They often take the form of visual content like an image or a video with some kind of message that speaks to people who get it because of some knowledge they have or membership in a particular group. Memes don’t have to be funny or satirical, but that makes them more likely to be shared widely. And while politicians these days work to deliberately create and share memes, some of the most well-known ones were unintentionally sparked.

One of the earliest memes of the modern era was former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s enthusiastic scream the night of the Iowa caucuses, with videos and images of the Democrat’s guttural shriek being widely shared, drawing ridicule and damaging his already struggling presidential bid.

When President Barack Obama was moving into the White House in 2009, the photos of outgoing President George W. Bush with the text, “Miss me yet?” were broadly shared by Bush’s supporters.

A 2011 photo of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wearing sunglasses and staring at her phone became a popular meme the following year, “Texts from Hillary,” purporting to show her sending snarky texts to politicians and celebrities.

“If you do it well, you tap into something that the group agrees upon or is feeling suspicious about; you tap into something that connects with the audience,” said Rebecca Ortiz, an associate professor of advertising at Syracuse University who has researched the influence of memes around political identity.

How do the two candidates approach memes?

Biden’s campaign has created its own stockpile of photos and videos for distribution on official Biden-related accounts. According to a Biden campaign official, advisers are also looking to partner with third-party creators in the coming months, with the hopes of reaching the followings of users who already seem aligned with a pro-Biden message.

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By developing relationships with outside creators, campaign officials hope that some undecided or as-yet unpersuaded voters will glom onto Biden’s message if they receive it from another account they’re already following.

“We’re trying really hard to run a digital program that is authentic to our candidate, who is probably not spending all his time on Twitter — actually, he definitely is not,” said Clarke Humphrey, senior adviser for digital persuasion for the Biden campaign. “So I think we just have been really creative about how to leverage all the corners of the internet so that he can be where he needs to be without him actually having to go to those places necessarily.”

Trump, a prolific user of social media even before he ran for president, has long embraced memes and shared them, as have his very-online political aides and some of his adult children. His oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., shares them frequently and refers to himself on Instagram as a “Meme Wars General.”

The campaign did not offer any details about its digital team or its use of memes. Spokesperson Steven Cheung issued a statement calling out Biden’s videotaped flubs of speeches and moments of apparent confusion.

“Joe Biden is a walking, talking meme every time he shuffles into public view,” Cheung said.

What are some examples of their content?

Biden’s team has embraced “Dark Brandon,” reappropriating a right-wing conspiracy meme that depicted the president as a menacing force and used a nickname, “Brandon,” that become an in-joke among conservatives for insulting him.

While “Dark Brandon” originally depicted Biden as a shadowy threat, Democrats adopted it, using the image as a meme to mock conspiracy theories about Biden’s purported influence on events like the Super Bowl and portraying him as a powerful force to tout his accomplishments.

Now, the campaign sells signs, mugs, baby onesies and even coffee bags portraying Biden as “Dark Brandon” with red laser eyes.

Trump and his staff regularly share memes that glorify him in over-the-top ways, such as depicting him to be leading a band of dancing Bollywood soldiers.

In April, right before the total solar eclipse swept across North America, Trump shared a meme video on his Truth Social media account that featured clips of people staring up at the sky wearing eclipse glasses and cheering as the sky darkened, before cutting to an image of the sun with a large silhouette of Trump’s head blocking it out as people cheer.

And both the Biden and Trump campaigns quickly clip potentially embarrassing videos of their opponent and post them online within minutes, injecting those moments into the social media bloodstream and often driving traditional news coverage.

When have the memes gone wrong?

Trump and his campaign often share content created by outside meme-makers — often geared to his base supporters — and sometimes disavow content that stirs outrage later.

In 2016 when he shared a meme about Clinton that appeared to depict the Star of David atop a pile of cash, evoking an antisemitic trope. Trump deleted the image but called it “a basic star, often used by sheriffs.”

Last month, Trump drew backlash for sharing a video meme on Truth Social that included references to a “unified Reich” among hypothetical news headlines if he wins the election in November.

The “unified Reich” meme was created by an outside group of meme makers that The New York Times reported has collaborated with the Trump campaign. The Dilley Meme Team describes itself as “America’s greatest MAGA Members” and “Trump’s Online War Machine” with their creations sometimes shared by Trump himself.

The campaign said the video was shared by a staffer who saw it online and did not see the reference. Trump’s campaign denied it coordinates with the group but said it appreciates the effort of outside creators.

Brenden Dilley, who leads the Dilley Meme Team, did not respond to emailed questions about the group’s work but posted a reply on X saying he would grant an interview in January 2025, after the next presidential inauguration.

Whose memes are going furthest?

It’s hard to say. Both candidates have tens of millions of followers across social media networks, as do their campaign accounts, but it’s difficult to track the number of times any particular meme is shared, or remixed and shared again.

Trump has more social media followers than Biden on Instagram, TikTok, Truth Social (Trump’s social media network) and X, though the former president has only used X once since his account on the site, then known as Twitter, was locked after the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Trump’s lone post since then was to post his mug shot. It, too, has become a meme.

Undersea explorers mark a tragic day. Things to know about the Titan disaster anniversary

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By PATRICK WHITTLE and HOLLY RAMER (Associated Press)

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A year after an experimental submersible imploded en route to the Titanic, unanswered questions linger — with no immediate answers.

Tuesday marks one year since the Titan vanished on its way to the historic wreckage site. After a five-day search that captured the world’s attention, officials said the craft had been destroyed and all five people on board killed.

The U.S. Coast Guard quickly convened a high-level investigation into what happened. Concerns leading up to the investigation included the Titan’s unconventional design and its creator’s decision to forgo standard independent checks.

A look at the one-year anniversary of the Titan tragedy:

The investigation is taking longer than expected

Coast Guard officials said in a statement last week that they would not be ready to release the results of their investigation by the anniversary. A public hearing to discuss the findings won’t happen for at least two more months, they said.

Investigators “are working closely with our domestic and international partners to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the incident,” Marine Board of Investigation Chair Jason Neubauer said, describing the inquiry as a “complex and ongoing effort.”

The Titan was owned by a company called OceanGate, which suspended its operations last July, not long after the tragedy. OceanGate said in a Tuesday statement that it “has ceased all operations and is continuing to cooperate with authorities, including the U.S. Coast Guard, in their investigations.” The company also said in its statement that it expresses “our deepest condolences to their families and loved ones, as well as everyone impacted by this tragedy.”

The Titan made its last dive on June 18, 2023, a Sunday morning, and lost contact with its support vessel about two hours later. When it was reported overdue that afternoon, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to the area, about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said Monday that there are other submersibles operating within Canadian waters, some of which are not registered with any country.

In addition to OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush, the implosion killed two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

Remembering those who died

David Concannon, a former adviser to OceanGate, said he will mark the anniversary privately with a group of people who were involved with the company or the submersible’s expeditions over the years, including scientists, volunteers and mission specialists.

Harding and Nargeolet were members of The Explorers Club, a professional society dedicated to research, exploration and resource conservation.

“Then, as now, it hit us on a personal level very deeply,” the group’s president, Richard Garriott, said in an interview last week.

Garriott said there will be a remembrance celebration for the Titan victims this week in Portugal at the annual Global Exploration Summit.

The tragedy won’t stop deep-sea exploration

The Georgia-based company that owns the salvage rights to the Titanic plans to visit the sunken ocean liner in July using remotely operated vehicles, and a real estate billionaire from Ohio has said he plans a voyage to the shipwreck in a two-person submersible in 2026.

Several deep-sea explorers told The Associated Press that the Titan disaster shook the worldwide community of explorers, but it remains committed to continuing its missions to expand scientific understanding of the ocean.

Garriott believes the world is in a new golden age of undersea exploration, thanks to technological advances that have opened frontiers and provided new tools to more thoroughly study already visited places. The Titan tragedy hasn’t tarnished that, he said.

“Progress continues,” he said. “I actually feel very comfortable and confident that we will now be able to proceed.”

Veteran deep-sea explorer Katy Croff Bell said the Titan implosion reinforced the importance of following industry standards and performing rigorous testing. But in the industry as a whole, “the safety track record for this has been very good for several decades,” said Bell, president of Ocean Discovery League, a nonprofit organization.

Ramer reporter from Concord, New Hampshire.

New York’s top court declines to hear Trump’s appeal of gag order in hush money case

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By JAKE OFFENHARTZ (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s top court declined Tuesday to hear Donald Trump’s gag order appeal, leaving the restrictions in place following his felony conviction last month. The Court of Appeals found that the order does not raise “substantial” constitutional issues that would warrant an immediate intervention.

The decision is the latest legal setback for the former president, who has repeatedly railed against the gag order, which prevents him from commenting on witnesses, jurors and others who were involved in the hush money case. But it could be short lived. The trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, is expected to rule soon on a defense request to lift the gag order.

Trump’s attorneys filed a notice of appeal with the state’s high court on May 15, during the former president’s landmark criminal trial. They argued that the gag order restricted Trump’s “core political speech on matters of central importance at the height of his Presidential campaign.”

But the Court of Appeals disagreed. In a decision list posted on Tuesday, the court said it would not automatically hear the case, writing that “no substantial constitutional question is directly involved.”

Trump’s lawyers were essentially seeking a shortcut to expedite their appeal, which was rejected by the state’s mid-level appeals court last month. They now have 30 days to file a motion for leave to appeal, according to court spokesperson Gary Spencer.

Merchan imposed the gag order on March 26, a few weeks before the start of the trial, after prosecutors raised concerns about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s tendency to attack people involved in his cases.

During the trial, Merchan held Trump in contempt of court and fined him $10,000 for violating the gag order. The judge threatened to put Trump in jail if he did it again.

The order remains in effect weeks after the conclusion of the trial, which ended with Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records arising from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier, which he denies. He is scheduled to be sentenced July 11.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office had urged the Court of Appeals to reject the appeal. In their own letter, prosecutors noted the question about whether the order should be lifted could be dealt with through post-trial court filings.

Trump’s lawyers have argued that he should be entitled to fully address the case, given the continued public criticism of him by his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen and Daniels, both key prosecution witnesses.

Days after the verdict, they sent a letter to Merchan asking him to lift the gag order. They followed up last week with a formal motion requesting that the restrictions be rescinded. Prosecutors have until Thursday to respond. Merchan is expected to rule soon after that, possibly before Trump’s June 27 debate with President Joe Biden.

“It’s a little bit of the theater of the absurd at this point, right? Michael Cohen is no longer a witness in this trial,” an attorney for Trump, Todd Blanche, told the AP earlier this month. “The trial is over.”

Messages seeking comment were left Tuesday for Blanche and the Manhattan DA’s office.

Apple kills off its buy now, pay later service service barely a year after launch

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By KEN SWEET (AP Business Writer)

NEW YORK (AP) — Apple is discontinuing its buy now, pay later service known as Apple Pay Later barely a year after its initial launch in the U.S., and will rely on companies who already dominate the industry like Affirm and Klarna.

It’s an acknowledgement from a company known for producing hit products that building a financial services business from scratch as Apple has been doing for several years is difficult and highly competitive.

Apple Pay Later launched with fanfare in March 2023 as a way for iPhone customers to split purchases of up to $1,000 into four equal payments with no fees or interest. The service was Apple’s answer to the growing popularity of buy now, pay later services globally, and considered a sizeable threat to companies like Klarna, Affirm and others.

But Apple Pay Later was only available where Apple Pay was accepted whereas the other buy now, pay later companies had deeply integrated themselves into millions of merchant websites.

In an acknowledgement of how popular buy now, pay later services had become, Apple said at its developer’s conference this month that it would start allowing banks to offer buy now, pay later plans to their customers through Apple Pay and Apple Wallet. Affirm would be integrated directly into Apple Wallet, and Apple customers would be able to open an Affirm account directly.

“With the introduction of this new global installment loan offering, we will no longer offer Apple Pay Later in the U.S.,” Apple said late Monday. “Our focus continues to be on providing our users with access to easy, secure and private payment options with Apple Pay, and this solution will enable us to bring flexible payments to more users, in more places across the globe, in collaboration with Apple Pay enabled banks and lenders.”

Apple executives as recently as this month had indicated that the company still had plans for Apple Pay Later despite announcing plans to integrate Affirm directly into Apple Wallet.

Apple Pay Later was unique because Apple needed to create its own bank to offer the loans. The Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs, which means Goldman ultimately decides who gets approved and what spending limits are for each customer.

Apple has discontinued any new Apple Pay Later loans, but customers who have existing Apple Pay Later loans will be able to manage them inside Apple Pay.