File:ObamaCruz.jpg

Cruz "Ted", and Obama by his full name, because that's how they referred to themselves.

A bay area friend posted this, and I'm sure to many on his side of the aisle it was funny. But the problem is that it's silly and only appeals to low information leftists.

• (1) The meme is wrong... it's not Eduardo Rafael Cruz, it is Rafael Edward Cruz
• (2) He goes by Ted just like Edward Kennedy did.
• (3) Full names are a sign of respect, and the media has contemt for Cruz, so use the more casual first name
• (4) Hillary and her supporters popularized Obama's full name during the campaign. And some use it for contempt, others out of respect. But a quick google showed CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, NYT, NPR, CSPAN Wikipedia, and many left-wing sources all referring to Barack by his full name. I remembered him doing it in his book, or in speeches, a quick search found a couple of examples. So this wasn't an example of FoxNews uniquely barbing the President with his middle name... it was a case where it became common usage, and they did what everyone else did. (Maybe with a little more enthusiasm, but it's not some huge outlier or example of hypocrisy).

One of the differences between left and right memes seems to be that the right is more empathetic to the other side.

The right laughs because a meme exposes an underlying truth and hypocrisy that can't be denied, and they can imagine the other side wincing at the biting nature of it. (As well as all getting it themselves).

While the left laughs at their memes because it perpetuates a half-truth based on their sides lie of omission (they are insiders, and get the joke)... while the people on the other side, are going, "that's not funny, because it's not even close to true".

So left memes are inside jokes, and right memes are more likely fundamental truths (that gets more meat on the ball).

Examples are things like abortion, capital punishment, or immigration. The left will spin it, that the right claims to care about people if they're unborn, but because they tolerate capital punishment or enforcing our immigration laws, they don't really care about life at all. And they laugh... the right scratches their heads at the foul tip because there's no moral inconsistency to the strawman.

To the right, holding the guilty accountable for their actions is not the same as persecuting the innocent. So their memes about the left care about the border under Trump, but not at all when the problems are twice as bad under Biden -- those have traction because they are fundamentally true and easy to validate. The left cares about the lives of innocent repeat felons who raped and murdered children, but they don't care about innocent full-term babies or care how many children are sex trafficked for the sake of their open borders policy. That's a lot stronger hit, because there's more evidence of truth, and even the other side has to recognize that.

So until the left learns that the key to a successful meme is an underlying truth, and not a misrepresentation or misunderstanding of the other side's values, they will not be able to meme well. And just leave the other side scratching their heads, or using them as examples of not quite getting it.