Description
The aesthetic turn in International Relations and work on the Popular Culture-World Politics Continuum have opened critical and discursive spaces for the analysis of how we think about global affairs. This paper analyses the visions of international politics that popular culture produces, focusing on the Biden presidency and the way it is negotiated through popular culture. As a starting point, the NASCAR chant “Let’s go Brandon” has been appropriated and become a meme-fied artefact for right wing groups and Republican politicians to mock the president, becoming a theme for T-shirts and hats as well. The “Dark Brandon Rises” meme would then become a counter-narrative employed by Liberals and Democrats, outlining a space for the parallel contestation of politics and popular culture, blurring the lines between different genres and media. Scrutinising the competing visions and counter-visions of American politics during the Biden presidency and how they are negotiated in digital and cultural realms is the ultimate aim of this paper.
