Dark MAGA, a new aesthetic being promoted by both Trump supporters and more extreme political groups.
Newsweek describes Dark MAGA as, “More of a meme than a political slogan, Dark MAGA is a post-alt-right aesthetic that promotes an authoritarian version of Trump in dystopian, terminator-like images. In some, the Trump Tower is painted entirely in black and the former president is seen piercing through the screen with blue laser eyes.”
Squirrel Highlighted this is the latest attempt of the ‘alt-right’, in disarray since the Charlottesville Unite the right rally that ended in the murder of counter-protest Heather Heyer in 2017, to rebrand itself and reunify its various factions.
Rather than being a new movement, Dark MAGA is broadly the same set of people engaging in the same kinds of activities, with the aim of grabbing attention.
The secondary aim of Dark MAGA that Squirrell discussed is to launder more extreme narratives and aesthetics into the mainstream Trumpist movement. Dark MAGA draws heavily from the vaporwave aesthetic, a nostalgic movement itself appropriated by ‘fashwave’, an 80s-themed neon-coloured movement popular with white nationalists and white supremacists.
Dark MAGA is also influenced by the ‘skull mask’ movement, as discussed by Hampton Stall and Daniel Grober in their article for GNET, and attempts to introduce mainstream conservatives to more extreme parts of the right through melding Trump memes with these different aesthetics.
Dark MAGA is slowly but surely garnering more attention as time goes on. With this said, it won’t be long until it gets more popular and glorified by the majority of Trump supporters if not blowing up on social media.
