:quality(50)/2024/05/19/trump-6649ce5c5c1e9544161860.jpg?w=1024&resize=1024,1024&ssl=1 "In light of the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, the actor criticizes Donald Trump in a campaign clip for his opponent, Joe Biden.")
In light of the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, the actor criticizes Donald Trump in a campaign clip for his opponent, Joe Biden.
He is an iconic voice attacking Donald Trump. For his campaign for the upcoming presidential elections in November, Joe Biden enlisted the help of Robert De Niro. In a video released on the YouTube channel of the current U.S. president on Wednesday, May 22, the actor addresses the billionaire, accusing him of having “snapped.”
Titled “Snapped,” the thirty-second video highlights Donald Trump’s various excesses, reminding Americans of his unpredictability and sometimes dangerous public statements. Robert De Niro mentions “midnight tweets,” “bleach consumption,” and the use of “tear gas against citizens.” The video includes archival footage of Donald Trump recommending a bleach treatment for COVID-19 during a 2020 press conference.
The Hollywood icon warns, “We knew Trump was out of control when he was president. Then he lost the 2020 election and snapped.” He also accuses the billionaire of wanting to become a “dictator” if he wins in November. This is not the first time the actor has expressed his anti-Trump stance. In early May, during an interview with American television, he called Trump a “true lunatic” and a “monster.”
Robert De Niro’s position comes as the presidential candidate held a rare rally in the Bronx, a disadvantaged neighborhood in New York, on Thursday, where he hopes to appeal to Hispanic and African-American voters. Joe Biden’s campaign team aired an advertisement before the rally focused on racial controversies surrounding Donald Trump. In 1989, the businessman called for the death penalty for five black and Hispanic teenagers wrongfully accused and convicted of raping a woman in Central Park; it was one of the most famous cases of wrongful convictions in the United States, with racism as the backdrop.
“It’s a love festival!” There’s a hint of relief in Donald Trump’s voice. On Thursday, May 23, the Republican billionaire held a rally in a place he certainly would never have set foot in if he were not a candidate: the “South Bronx,” one of New York’s poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods, plagued by a litany of economic, social, and environmental problems.
Called to testify in the trial where he is accused of falsifying payments to cover up a relationship with a porn star, the former U.S. president ultimately refused to testify before the New York Criminal Court.
Donald Trump will not provide his version of events. Accused of falsifying payments made in 2016 to a porn star to buy her silence about their relationship, he has been appearing before the New York Criminal Court (United States) for over a month. On the last day of the case review, the former president refused to testify and attacked the court in front of the press: “There is no crime, it’s a sham court, I’ve never seen anything like it.” Donald Trump had promised before the trial began that he would testify before the court.
Not a hindrance for the presidential run
For many observers, the former president had too much to lose. Instead, the billionaire’s defense targets the main witness in the case, Michael Cohen. The former lawyer, who handled the payment, testified on Monday, May 20, claiming that Donald Trump approved his reimbursement in 2017. For the Trump camp, the man is not reliable. A conviction would not prevent Donald Trump from running in November.
After the 2020 presidential election, marked by Donald Trump and his supporters’ cheating allegations, the pressure is already high on officials organizing the November election. Advances in artificial intelligence add to the already significant threat of misinformation.
In Arizona, in the western United States, local authorities are preparing employees for these potential risks with a kind of role-playing game. The Washington Post describes how last December, ten teams of about ten local government employees participated in a two-day simulation to face problems they might encounter as the election approaches. Each team represented a fictitious account. They were first greeted by a video message from Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Secretary of State, who is responsible for organizing the election in the state. However, this fake video was generated by artificial intelligence.
Do you speak English well, know web culture, have a sense of humor and want to pocket $85,000? Joe Biden may have a job to offer you. The American president’s campaign team is reportedly looking, in view of the presidential election on November 5, for a “meme maker”, these publications published en masse on the internet to make viral jokes.
In the United States, this content has become essential to political communication. Because, with social networks, memes quickly become international symbols and can propel an American elected official to the forefront. Like the meme about Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders wearing his mittens, during the inauguration of Joe Biden in 2021. “In the United States, there is a literal battle of image during elections and for a politician, it is necessary to take Internet codes seriously,” underlines François Jost, professor of information and communication sciences, author of the book Est-ce que tu mèmes?.
According to the job offer published at the end of May and spotted by American media, the candidate selected for Joe Biden’s campaign team will have different missions. He will need to maintain good relationships with the main online media companies, podcast creators and also meme pages. He will also work as a team to identify the best “opportunities to seize” to communicate with the codes of internet humor. The mission is paid up to $85,000 for one year.
Controlling your digital image has become a major challenge. A slightly distorted photo can quickly change the reputation of a public figure. Joe Biden has often paid the price with his rival Donald Trump and his supporters, who have mastered the art of “trolling” very well: this practice of posting a publication on the internet to spark controversy.
His Republican opponents, for example, had diverted a photo of him leaning towards a journalist to better hear him during a press conference. “In the photo, he has his eyes closed and his face tilted, so Internet users made a meme suggesting that he was sleeping,” describes François Jost. “This is what subsequently earned him the nickname “Sleepy Joe” from Donald Trump.” A nickname constantly reused in a humorous way as soon as the American president seems, in a new photo, on the verge of dozing off. Which supports the idea, for his detractors, that he is now too old to lead the country.
The meme, a product to sell
Beyond the critical aspect, “memes can give rise to fake news by spreading rumors based on diverted images, the origin of which we no longer know,” warns François Jost. Communication teams therefore have every interest in quickly regaining control of these satirical publications distributed on the Web.
The “Dark Brandon” meme is the perfect example. This image, which depicts the current American president with red eyes shooting lasers, comes from several conspiracy theories on social networks. But his team finally managed to reappropriate this symbol with a simple idea: sell merchandising bearing the image of this meme on the president’s campaign website and make this Joe Biden with red eyes a kind of Superman. The strategy turns out to be a success. According to figures relayed by the American media Tech Crunch, products derived from Dark Brandon represent 54% of the total turnover of the campaign store, according to Axios.
For his part, Donald Trump is not to be outdone. In his campaign store, his team has plastered the “Never Surrender” meme on T-shirts and mugs. All illustrated by the judicial photo of the former President of the United States at the time of his arrest in Atlanta.
Rejuvenate your image
For Joe Biden, aged 81, and Donald Trump, 77, it is also a way of rejuvenating their image among voters and proving “that they are still in the game”, underlines François Jost. It is for this reason that the Democrat and his team opened a TikTok account in February. In the country, the Chinese platform has a total of 170 million users, two thirds of whom are adolescents.
Joe Biden is followed by 327,000 people on this account. Subscribers can see his supporters using humorous references associated with his mandate. Like actor Mark Hamill (aka Luke Skywalker in Star Wars), wearing a mask bearing the image of the “Dark Brandon” meme. However, this is the same Joe Biden who was very critical of TikTok and signed the law forcing the Chinese company ByteDance to sell the platform within nine months to another company, under penalty of being banned from the States -United.
“I think we can and we must integrate relevant, trendy and fun moments into our communication, especially on digital platforms,” Annie Wu Henry, social media specialist and behind the campaigns, argued with Tech Crunch in February. online of elected Democrats, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Senator John Fetterman. “But while doing this, we must continue to be strategic, intentional and attentive, even if it is a meme,” she concluded at the time. It remains to be seen which side will benefit the most from this strategy.
