US Right-Wing Users Flood X with Anakin Skywalker Memes Ahead of Midterm Elections

A new wave of memes has spread across the social network X ahead of the US midterm congressional elections: supporters of President Donald Trump and allied online figures are posting content about Anakin Skywalker, the Star Wars character who becomes the villain Darth Vader. Wired magazine, which reports on the trend, takes a sceptical view of it.

What is being posted

One post shows a frame from Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, captioned with a joke about mail-in ballots arriving overnight. Another is a montage from the prequel films, whose author writes that George Lucas may have unintentionally made highly effective far-right propaganda, and likens himself to Anakin. Guillaume Verdon, an AI startup founder and originator of the effective accelerationist movement, predicted that the edits could turn the tide of the midterms.

Christian streamer Kangmin Lee describes Anakin as an archetypal disenfranchised figure who realises the political order he believed in is corrupt. Right-leaning Substack writer Max Mersault considers the posts culturally significant. Elon Musk, who has channelled nearly half a billion dollars to Republican candidates this cycle, shared what appears to be an AI-generated image of Anakin on a throne, captioned "This is what they stole from us."

Wired's assessment

The outlet notes that Republicans face possible losses because of inflation, a war in the Middle East and the president's low approval. It also recalls an earlier trend of "Malfoid" content, based on Harry Potter fan fiction; the US Department of Education joined in on that meme, later updating it with Anakin imagery. A post by podcaster Katie Miller suggests a mixed attitude towards the trend.

Supporters of the Anakin trend call it a cultural victory, but Wired stresses that it amounts to online play. Actor Hayden Christensen told Variety in 2023 that portraying Anakin's path made the character more human, yet also showed him to be a pathetic person.