Prof. Sabina Magliocco (University of British Columbia): The Magical Resistance 2.0 - Meme Magic and the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

The 2016 presidential election in the United States saw the emergence of political magic as one modality through which voters attempted to influence the results. Both right- and left-wing groups wielded magic: the right in support of Donald J. Trump, the left as a form of resistance once he had won the election. We documented this range of responses in a special issue of the journal Nova Religio published in 2020; my article focused on the use of magic as a form of resistance by modern Pagan witches and other magical practitioners. Drawing on the work of Italian ethnologist Ernesto de Martino, I argued that Trump’s victory created a “crisis of presence” for the left which pushed them to develop a range of artistic responses, one of them being magic. In these artistic expressions, the witch emerged as a figure who could counter the destructive powers of darkness, bringing about transformation and regeneration. This lecture reprises my findings in the context of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Using both digital and in-person ethnography, and drawing on the work of Egil Asprem in the special issue cited above, I trace how the figures of the witch and the cat lady were deployed through memes and spells by a variety of left-leaning groups to create collective effervescence around Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.