A fake war with a fake ending

I think we will probably look back on cartoonist beanytuesday’s comic “2018 political rising stars to keep an eye on,” as one of the defining artworks of the 2020s. (Even though it was published two years before the decade began.) Specifically, the character from the comic, “Holden Bloodfeast,” a 118-year-old Republican who wants to nuke Iran. “I’ll do anything please I just want to see burning flesh one last time before I die,” Bloodfeast says in the comic. The punchline being that, of all the awful US political caricatures lampooned in the comic, Bloodfeast is considered “a respectable bipartisan.”

Nothing has quite so succinctly nailed gerontocratic psychopathy of our current moment better. A suicidal mania that, last night, to quote President Donald Trump, almost caused a “whole civilization to die, never to be brought back again.”

But the long and unfathomably stupid road to last night’s brush with nuclear armageddon has not been a traditional war by any means. The US government has spent a massive amount of energy not just fighting a war, but, also, a “meme war.” Or perhaps, put another way, they are increasingly obsessed with the perception online that they are winning the war and see it as just as important — if not more so — than actually accomplishing anything militaristically.

And the assumption, at least among Trump’s base, is that Iran cares as much about meme bullshit as they do. As I wrote last month, the war with Iran, thanks to social media, is being processed by many Americans as something akin to The Olympics or The World Cup. A global “situation to monitor” — and bet on — where, amid all of the real human death happening on the ground, countries also compete for clout and engagement on the web. It’s a fascinating bit of projection. Our government is full of internet-poisoned podcasters and groypers who only care about Twitter dunks, so surely Iran’s must be, as well. Which is not simply not true. As X user @fitnessfeelingz wrote last month, “Post-modern war is here. No unifying narrative. Why are we at war? Who with? Is it a good idea? When did it start? Is this even a war? No one agrees on anything.” And that’s doubly true for the memes, shitposts, and AI slop that almost ended the world last night.

Trump started his saber-rattling against Iran in earnest back in 2018, during his first administration. After he pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal, he announced that he would reimpose sanctions on Iran with, of course, with a meme. A Game Of Thrones meme reading, “Sanctions are coming,” to be exact. Which George RR Martin was quick to dunk on. Two years later, in January 2020, Trump would carry out the extrajudicial assassination of Iranian military officer Qasem Soleimani. Trump announced Soleimani’s death via a wordless tweet featuring a low-res image of the American flag (quite the visual metaphor). As one user wrote at the time, “Dude started World War III by killing a leader then dropped the flag like it was his Call Of Duty emblem I’m dead.”

Jamie Cohen, a professor of media studies, wrote a piece at the time about the futility — and nihilism — of waging war this way, titled, “We’ve Already Lost The Meme War.” Cohen argued that, “Trump is a memetic thought leader who commands via visual rhetoric. The goal is to please his audience.” Which he certainly did. But he also convinced right-wing American internet users that the “meme war” actually existed in the first place.

Trump’s 2024 electoral victory definitely helped to solidify the “meme war” narrative, especially since Trump’s podcast bro whistlestop tour proved decidedly more effective than Kamala Harris’ brat offensive. And, sure, a political campaign mostly shaped by narratives and popularity is much closer to a meme war than real armed conflict. But Trump, who learned early in his first term to never stop campaigning, doesn’t seem to have grasped the difference.