The Internet's reaction to the new Pope
To paraphrase Max0r in his incorrect summary of Elden Ring: witnessing the kind of memes spawned by this historical event makes me want to minimize the amount of air I breathe.
Pope Francis spent the last few months of his Papacy hand-picking the cardinals in charge of electing his successor. On Easter of all possible days, he publicly told the US Vice-President, Pharisee McCouchBoner, to start actually behaving like the Christian he claims to be, and then he died the very day after that on early morning, thus pulling off the Ultimate Troll against Trump as his last act on this existential plane. After that, I guess he possessed the cardinals and added another layer to his trolling, because they elected the perfect Pope to piss off fascists in general and Trump in particular: someone born in USAmerican soil whose origin, background, actions, ideas and everything other than the physical place where he was born represent everything Trump and his cult ardently despise.
And how did the Internet contribute to this? How did they mock Trump for getting what he wished for in the worst possible way for his interests and ambitions?
They didn't. They just watered down the whole thing. They didn't point and laugh at Trump, not even in response to that stupid AI image of him cosplaying as the Pope. All their memes were just rubbing in everyone else's faces how Leo XIV would turn Vatican City into a cesspool of either USAmerican, Illinoisian or Chicagoan pop culture, filled with supermarkets and fast food chains of his place of birth, with one of those literally life-threatening "pavement princess" trucks being turned into the new Popemobile, etcetera.
And that's the meme that'll be passed on and perpetuated now. Sure, Trump will soon start throwing one hissy fit after another when he eventually realizes what Leo XIV stands for, but that'll stay within the walls of the Oval Office. Some people on the Internet will start laughing at him for this, but it'll be too little too late. The MAGA cult's propaganda, pushing the narrative of Leo XIV's election being a victory for the USA and for their leader, will have succeeded without any of the MAGA cultists having ever needed to lift a finger, because everyone else already spreaded their meme and did that work for them.
Remember what anti-fascist activists were saying all the time? That you cannot negotiate, compromise or have a rational debate with fascists because any recognition you give to them and their ideology can and will be used by fascists to further advance their goals? Well, I guess we should add this corollary: you cannot troll back to fascists either, because no matter what, it'll also count as recognition, so they will manipulate that "epic troll" and turn it into yet another tool for their own benefit. The Popes Francis & Leo XIV and the College of Cardinals already tried, and look how it backfired.
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P.S.:
My condolences to any Peruvians here. I'm sure you people were so happy and proud for knowing the new Pope will be someone who came to your country so long ago, came to love its people and eventually was like "That's it, let's drop all pretense: I'm Peruvian too"... Or at least, y'all would have been happy and proud, if not for the dumb Yankees (who are the vast majority of the people on the Internet) ruining the fun and erasing anything that could potentially hint at the land and the people he chose to belong to.
