Meme as environment, movement as climate: the Trump indictment events in the political anthropocene

If memes are a type of communication produced by the environment—a composition of human and non-human elements, that environment influences and is influenced by climate or atmosphere that facilitates the body politic's in/action. This article, thus, explores the symbolic interactions within and surrounding political memes, focusing on intertextualities and paratexts in the visual (re)presentation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2023 indictments. The critique suggests that memeification of politics presents possibilities for community, but may also pollute the media environment with distorted rhetorical patterns. It recognizes similarities between movements and memetics, both of which are part of a media ecological system and share characteristics of imitation and identity formation.