The so-called "Marco Rubio meme," featuring US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is a cheerful phenomenon rarely seen in recent years. Even those who dislike President Donald Trump's MAGA leanings can share a laugh for a moment. Perhaps this is the only prescription that can restore balance to American politics.
The source of laughter is simple. It draws on Rubio's endless addition of new titles to his resume. President Trump appointed him Secretary of State. He then gave him the title of acting National Security Adviser, and also tasked him with serving as acting Archivist of the United States. In response, one internet user created and shared a photoshopped image assigning Rubio a new title. The initial version of the meme emerged right after the US government's military operation in Venezuela, featuring "Rubio, the new President of Venezuela."
Soon, various memes spread with delight. Rubio became the new manager of the world-renowned football club Manchester United, and transformed into the new Shah of Iran. Those who share these memes likely hold starkly different views on the circumstances that gave rise to the satire. Whether one sees the operation to oust Venezuelan ruler Nicolás Maduro as a brilliant victory or a terrible war crime, no one can help but laugh at the photoshopped image of the new Venezuelan President Rubio, comically dressed like a third-rate military band. Some may want to argue that terrible tragedies should not be turned into jokes. But it is precisely that kind of solemnity that has suffocated American politics today.
Humanity has always made jokes about terrible things. Laughter helps ease, if only slightly, the pain of enduring that terrible reality. We shrug off failure and misfortune, crack jokes at funerals and on battlefields, and hurl mockery at tyranny and plague. Because often, the alternative is simply to sob helplessly. Of course, the type of joke matters. There are classic, cheerful jokes that poke fun at the foolishness of anti-Semitism, while there are also unfunny and unpleasant jokes that ridicule the mere fact of being Jewish. That is why the "Rubio meme" feels heartwarming. It gives us all the room to laugh together, even in a bleak situation where there is nothing to celebrate.
I was living in New York when it was revealed that former President Bill Clinton had an inappropriate relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The incident divided people to the extreme. My own family was also split along political lines. Republican relatives fumed that it was "a shocking scandal that should force him to resign from the presidency," while Democratic family members believed that "Republicans were maliciously exploiting private matters." In New York, where Democratic support is overwhelming, the latter sentiment dominated. New Yorkers' support for Clinton remained firm, and they were rather outraged by the Republicans' excessive offensive.
That did not mean people refrained from making the scandal a source of laughter. Employees at the bank where I worked, real estate agents, and even the owner of the neighborhood corner store — all of them had at least one Clinton joke on their lips. Late-night talk show hosts were thrilled. Of course, Lewinsky, an innocent private citizen who had no reason to be a target of jokes, had to bear too much of the blame. But most of the humor was relatively mild, amounting to all of us clicking our tongues together at behavior we all agreed was wrong.
Today, talk show hosts focus on overly earnest attacks rather than light, cross-partisan jokes. The goal is to elicit what comedian Seth Meyers calls "clapter" — a mixture of applause and laughter. It means that audiences enthusiastically rage and clap at remarks that suit their political tastes, but the remarks themselves are not particularly funny. It is merely a symptom of a sick, dying culture that has given up even the faintest hope of finding common ground.
The Rubio meme cannot cure this deep illness. Like other memes, its shelf life is too short to guarantee any lasting therapeutic effect. The Rubio meme has already become less frequent and less amusing than before. Before long, the internet's attention will shift to something else. But there is no need to discard the very spirit that breathed life into this meme. As long as Americans can laugh together across partisan divides, there remains a chance to find more durable compromises and common ground.
