Jill Stein's Trolley Problem Solution

About

Jill Stein's Trolley Problem Solution refers to a post made by Green Party candidate Jill Stein's social media team in late August 2024 ahead of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election. The post, which urged viewers to "#VoteSteinWare2024," showed a solution to a version of the Trolley Problem meme in which bodies were laid down on (Republican) red and (Democrat) blue tracks but free alongside the green one (Green Party). The post gathered parodies and edits in subsequent days from people who tried their hand at supposedly rectifying the exploitable meme format, such as showing Stein's green track reconverging into the red track or the trolley man blowing up the trolley itself.

Origin

On August 25th, 2024, Jill Stein's campaign team made a post to their X^[1] / Twitter profile depicting a version of the Trolley Problem meme. The image showed people being laid down across red and blue tracks meant to represent votes for Republicans or Democrats, and smiling people holding cards that read "Free Healthcare," "Free College" and "Free Palestine." The meme was captioned, "The easiest trolly problem you will find," and read, "It's Simple. Vote Green. #SteinWare2024."

Spread

On August 26th, 2024, X^[2] user @NiaFrome quoted the post saying, "this is a good ad, gotta hand it to 'em," gathering over 73,000 likes in two days. On August 27th, X^[3] user @DewEnjoyer quoted the post, writing, "For the love of God if you're American and you care for these things do not vote green," and gathering over 76,000 likes in a day.

On August 27th, X^[4] user @polyfraggrenade posted a version of the meme showing the green path for Stein curving back into the red path, with no bodies in the blue path. The post gathered over 9,000 likes before the user deleted it.

As it continued to spread, the post gathered criticism on X from people who thought @polyfraggrenade was wrong to remove people from the blue path meant to represent Democrats, with some Americans criticizing the party for not calling for a ceasefire in Gaza or continuing to send weapons to Israel.

X^[5] user @feraljokes quoted the post on August 28th, 2024, writing, "OK but explain why you took the bodies off of the blue path," gathering over 20,000 likes in a day. The user also linked @polyfraggrenade's response^[6] in which they wrote that they were "too lazy" to edit bodies into the blue path.

On August 27th, X^[7] user @TheSpiralPro quoted @polyfraggrenade with their own version of the Trolley Problem, gathering over 55,000 likes in a day.

More internet users posted their versions of the Trolley Problem in subsequent days, including X^[8] user @Inhuman_Ls, who posted a version of the meme showing the Trolley exploding after being shot by a rocket launcher.

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References