Anakin Skywalker has become an unlikely symbol in a wave of right-wing online commentary, where Republican supporters and technology influencers are using the Star Wars character to express anger at what they describe as a corrupt political system. Critics argue that the meme strips away Anakin’s story—his manipulation by an authoritarian figure and transformation into Darth Vader—to promote a reactionary fantasy of lost power and revenge.
From disillusionment to political meme
Christian streamer Kangmin Lee argued that Anakin represents a “typical disenfranchised youth” who becomes radicalized after discovering that the “political order” he once trusted is “deeply corrupt, hypocritical and evil.”
Right-wing Substack author Max Mersault called the post “culturally significant” and said it was difficult to design “a better anti-progressive memetic virus.” He added: “I tried it in the lab.”
Elon Musk, after putting nearly $500 million into Republican candidates this term, shared a supposedly AI-generated image of Anakin sitting on a throne beside Padmé Amidala and their children, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. Imperial guards and stormtroopers surround them, while the image declares: “This is what they stole from us.”
Who “they” are is left unclear. For MAGA supporters facing a potential blue wave amid inflation, wars in the Middle East and the president’s historic unpopularity, that ambiguity may be part of the point. The meme instead brings together a fascist worldview, a desire for corrupt power and anger over issues including immigration and “DEI.”
The participants also appear uninterested in the fact that Anakin was turned into an evil servant by a decrepit old wizard who ordered him to slaughter children. In the political reading of the meme, that transformation becomes an acceptable price for subverting democracy.
The broader reactionary meme cycle
The Anakin trend followed an incel-adjacent boom in “malfoid” content. The term refers to a fan-fiction premise that recasts Harry Potter antagonist Draco Malfoy as a female character and makes her the protagonist’s love interest. Some users treated the trend as another vehicle for reactionary propaganda, describing it as a similar ideological path.
The U.S. Department of Education also joined the meme, later updating its post with images of Anakin.
Katie Miller, a podcaster and the wife of Trump’s top adviser Stephen Miller, said on Sunday that the administration was similarly confusing fantasy intellectual property with political messaging. She posted on X: “The number of seconds users spent posting Anakin with no regrets is zero.”
A fantasy of cultural victory
The Republican Party and the technology right are not known for especially coherent analysis of the stories they embrace, so their identification with murderous tyrants is not entirely surprising. More difficult to explain is the apparent belief that this message will reach and resonate with well-adjusted voters outside their specialized social-media circles.
One supporter claimed that Anakin was “No Longer a Meme” and represented a “monumental zeitgeist victory.” Another claimed that, together with the Malfoid post, it had “reversed a decade of cultural corruption and damage in less than a week.”
Outside those online communities, the episode is closer to playing with action figures than to a meaningful political breakthrough. Wanting to be Darth Vader is the dream of a 10-year-old who is told to clean his room and eat his vegetables.
Hayden Christensen, who played Anakin Skywalker, told Variety in 2023 that the film depicting Anakin’s journey to the dark side “humanized” him while showing him to be “a pathetic human being” who was “trapped in this life that he probably never really wanted.”
It is reasonable to speculate that conservative influencers tied to a weakened President Trump may feel similarly trapped. They are unlikely to describe this mediated outburst of anxiety as a coping mechanism, however. Whatever happens in the election showdown, they will soon have another ambitious anti-hero—and will expect the rest of the internet to treat the next important post with equal seriousness.
Source: www.wired.com
