Lock Her Up

2016

Date: July 2016 onward · Place: Republican National Convention, Cleveland · Trump rallies nationwide · Figures: Michael Flynn, retired general · Chris Christie, prosecutor turned surrogate · Trump rally crowds · Tags: Chant, RallyCulture, Trump2016 01. A Crowd Memes Itself On 18 July 2016 retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn addresses the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He pauses as the delegates begin to chant 'Lock her up.' He joins in. 'That's right. Lock her up.' The chant predates Flynn's speech, surfacing at smaller Trump rallies through the spring. The convention national-televises it. By August it is the rally's reliable second-act crescendo, deployed at every venue when Clinton's name is invoked. 02. The Rally as Repost The chant is a meme in the original Dawkins sense, a unit transmitted from crowd to crowd by imitation. It needs no slide, no graphic, no app. It works because each new crowd has seen the previous crowd do it on a phone screen and arrives ready to perform it. After the election the chant persists at rallies for years, sometimes redirected at successive targets, the underlying gesture intact. The form outlives the original referent. Sources • Michael Flynn, address to the Republican National Convention, Cleveland, 18 July 2016, transcript via C-SPAN • Jeremy W. Peters, 'In a Crowd of Trump Supporters, a Cry of Lock Her Up,' New York Times, 19 July 2016 • Know Your Meme, 'Lock Her Up'