Goodbye To The Resistance? Remembering The Facepalms Of The Last Four Years

As we spoke about Sunday, today's election may signal the end of Trump memes, ending a meme presidency that has left an indelible mark on the meme economy. But it also may mark the end of a specific Trump-related phenomenon online: The Resistance.

For as much as Trump memes have been an exhausting blight on the internet for the apolitical meme-enjoyer, the #Resistance has been an equally exhausting, cringeworthy fallout of Trump's internet presence. In the last four years, some liberal Twitter users seem to have been under the impression they could post Trump away, leading to some truly bewildering and embarrassing posts. These are posters who seem to imagine they're characters in The West Wing, posting with the type of bloviating bluster of a person whose education has given them a sense that their superior intellect would be able to take down the president. Should Trump lose today, it may well be the last we see of these sorts of posts (perhaps because the posters will be too busy at brunch?).

With this exciting prospect ahead of us, let's take a look back at some of the dorkiest memes of the Resistance.

Eminem's Anti-Trump Freestyle

There's been quite a bit of musical and political cringe during the Trump years (more of that later), but perhaps no moment was as confusing as Eminem's Anti-Trump Freestyle, which found the Detroit rapper doing a cypher, or a rap without a beat, against the President in 2017.

The rap seemed to split viewers, with Resistance-types calling it a blistering takedown and everyone else thinking it was weird and silly. However it landed at the time, it's aged like milk, and the opening line, "That's an awfully hot coffee pot, should I spill it on Donald Trump? Probably not," has never not sounded completely ridiculous. Still, Eminem seems like one of the few rappers of yesteryear who hasn't cozied up to the President, as his former contemporaries Kanye West, 50 Cent and Lil Wayne have broken for Trump of late.

The Krassensteins

No discussion of the cringeworthiness of The Resistance would be complete without discussing The Krassensteins. The brothers Krassenstein became the poster boys for Resistance tweeters early on in the Trump presidency, faithfully replying to all of Trump's tweets about the RULE OF LAW that was going to TAKE DOWN THE PRESIDENT, until they were banned (falsely, they maintain) for operating numerous alternate accounts and violating the site's terms of service.

While the pair's ego was certainly annoying, they were also kind of adorable in hindsight, unleashing some truly unhinged gobbledigook that seemed to embody the spirit of the first couple years of the Trump presidency.

Straightforward From Here

Speaking of gobbledigook in the first few years of the Trump presidency, shortly after Trump's inauguration, CNN commentator Sally Kohn posted a "simple" plan to remove Trump from office, titled Straightforward From Here. The plan was to impeach both Trump and Pence, cause a constitutional crisis, hold a special election between Paul Ryan and Hillary Clinton, and have Clinton win. Simple, right?

Such was a typical fantasy early on in the Trump administration among liberals in the "bargaining" phase of his administration. Kohn's fantasy was quickly mocked by posters on the right and left, and Kohn later tried to claim it was satire, as she slowly turned into a corn cob.

Cuomosexual

The Trump administration was marked by multiple major events, but of these, the coronavirus pandemic is surely the biggest. Trump notoriously downplayed the threat of the coronavirus throughout 2020, which was very much not in line with how many Americans were feeling about the pandemic. In these times, New York governor Andrew Cuomo became a bizarre sex symbol thanks to his level-headed, daily briefings about the pandemic early on (though his handling of the pandemic was certainly not without its problems as well). This led to a simply awful music video by performer Randy Rainbow : Cuomosexual.

Mr. Rainbow's Grease-themed parody was a prime example of a) how insane the Trump presidency has driven people, b) how insane the pandemic has driven people and c) why musical theater must never be used for evil. Still, Cuomosexual isn't the only awful coronavirus-music parody released online. For more of the same, we highly recommend checking out this thread by Twitter user @LydiaBurrell.

Read Another Book

In an era where so many pop culture franchises were ravaged to smithereens by toxic fandoms, no brand suffered as much as Harry Potter. In addition to JK Rowling's descent into transphobia, its fans had an annoying habit of comparing everything that was going on in the world to the plot of the once-beloved children's series.

The continued equation to Trump as Voldemort and his lackeys to Umbridge was absolutely exhausting for anyone plugged into politics, leading to the phrase Read Another Book to become a rallying cry for leftists. If Trump loses, it's difficult to imagine another book that can so annoyingly dominate political discourse.