From WNYC Studios, I'm Brian Lerer.

This is my daily politics podcast.

It's Wednesday, February 7th.

We're going to talk about the memification of politics and the presidential election year now because viral content dominates the political

landscape. I obviously am not bringing you anything new by saying that. And memes, and we're

going to define memes, are playing an outsized role and an ever-increasing role in shaping American

politics. There's a good article about this

in The New Yorker by staff writer Claire Malone, who's going to join us in just a second to delve

into the memification of our politics, and she explores the way internet culture has helped

politicians. They're definitely trying to use it. Observers and the broader

public spread their ideas, their misinformation, rally support, or at times create a degree

of chaos. And as a result, Claire writes, the 2024 election seems likely to be waged in a media

environment where more and more voters are forming opinions based on the funny video their cousin's husband, sister, shared in a group chat.

Sound familiar?

So what's the first image that you have if I say Joe Biden?

Maybe not for you, Brian Marshall listeners, but for a lot of Americans, it might be

what they saw on TikTok of Joe Biden falling off a bicycle, or Donald Trump as seen in mugshots.

And Americans may have doubts about Biden's age as reflected reflected by that video, but the former president,

Trump, himself only a few years younger than Biden, so far, according to Claire, seems less

affected by the memeification. Maybe that's a good example of the way memes can shape the

public's perception, accurate or not. What does this all mean for 2024?

Claire Malone's new article in New Yorker is called the memeification of American politics.

...