Though online right-wing spaces are plagued with memes depicting the left as a movement filled with “brainwashed” members who only care about identity politics, the right relies on echo chambers and identity markers more than they’d like to admit — or perhaps more than they even realize.
Imaginary architypes of leftists used to discredit their movements are certainly not new. If you are at all interested in politics, I have no doubt that you’ve encountered memes constructing the left as a group of “radical” social justice warriors destroying your nuclear family through identity politics.
One of such popular memes — so popular in fact, that it was reposted by Elon Musk — has spread widely in right-wing spaces in recent years. The meme depicts a person covered in various symbols somehow equating to a leftist stance, like communism’s hammer and sickle, feminism’s Venus centred with a raised fist, a rainbow flag, and, of course, a surgical mask and vaccine needles.
The leftist is telling their supposed right-wing counterpart, who appears plainly as a white man absent of symbols and solely carrying an American flag, that he is “brainwashed.”
The right-wing character responds with a confused “really?” which carries the obvious implication that leftists are the brainwashed ones, belonging to too many movements to think for themselves. In contrast, the right-wing man is only loyal to the American flag, or so it seems.
It’s obvious that this meme is only effective to those that have a predisposed conception of the left as folks deeply wrapped in identity politics. However, the meme itself shows that even though they seemingly cannot come to terms with it, the right is obsessed with identity.
Working solely with the meme at hand, choosing to present the right-wing character as a patriotic white man reveals these preoccupations with identity in the first place. In fact, refusing to align oneself outright with any movements or ideologies in a comparative manner produces a sort of counter-identity. One is right-wing precisely because they do not wear a surgical mask, participate in the communist or feminist movements or support vaccination.
Memes like this one emphasize how the right relies heavily upon dog whistles to construct themselves as though they are existing outside of the identity politics while remaining constantly immersed in them. If the so-called leftist character is exerting their leftness through allegiance to progressive movements, the right-wing character is exerting their rightness through their allegiance to the American flag — implying that the character belongs to a host of movements antithetical to those of the leftist character.
This kind of counter-identity implies a host of signifiers that the meme is skillfully excluding. If one is not “brainwashed” enough to take precautions during a pandemic, someone else could describe them as being “brainwashed” into adapting an anti-vax or conspiracy theorist identity. If you’re vehemently against communism, how could you not be pro-capitalism (or pro-any-other-system)? Unless your identity only revolves around the things you are not and you disagree with absolutely everything, the identities you stand against reveal the movements you stand with.
Here, the whiteness of the right-wing character juxtaposed with their possession of the American flag reveals their own political positionality. As much as the right-wing character seems to represent the “everyman,” their loyalty to the American flag constructs all the movements inhabited by the so-called leftist character as simply “un-American.”
Thus, what does it mean to be the “everyman” to the right? The implication is that the average, simple American should be anti-feminist, suspicious of science, likely a proud capitalist and, as the meme most obviously suggests, white. In unpacking the positionality of the right-wing character, it grows increasingly obvious that this supposed “everyman” actually represents a very small demographic — a demographic with an undoubtably clear political stance at that.
Just as the Canadian Conservatives tout rhetoric that the right are the ones with “common sense,” and as right-wing movements function on the assumption that they represent the average citizen who remains largely outside of politics, those who amplify this rhetoric are always reluctant to acknowledge their own political positionality. The urge to mask their participation in identity-driven ideologies is understandable, for if they preface their myths that leftists are identity obsessed social justice warriors with recognition of their own identity politics, listeners will realize that the two characterizations are more similar than they thought.
Ultimately, I am tired of the right-wing tendency to pretend as though individuals on the right belong to zero movements except patriotism, and the left solely encompasses identity politics. Everyone has a political positionality, and the right-wing rhetoric denying such a truth simply highlights their positionality even more.