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President Trump drew condemnation for tweeting a violent, doctored video of him punching CNN on July 2, but the real punches were thrown back in 2007, at a scripted WWE match. Here's a look at how the fight came to be. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

If we could rip Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr.out of all political context and speak of them simply as two men with smartphones,their story might be one ofa father and son learning to memetogether.

Witness their accomplishments in the past week.

Step 1. The fatheradvancesan idea:

Step 2. The son follows up:

Of course, thats simplistic; theTrumps memescantbe separated from politics any more than the men.

When Trumptweeted a clip of himself pummeling a CNN avatar a week ago, he did so as president of the United States one who frequently attacksthe press asanenemy.

WhenTrump Jr. spent the following days advancingvariations of his fathers meme culminating in Trump as Tom Cruise chasing CNN in Top Gun he did so as the son of an embattled politician, and one of the presidentsfiercest defenders.

[The Reddit user behind Trumps CNN meme apologized. But #CNNBlackmail is the story taking hold.]

Father and sonhave long beenprolific online. And their week-long WrestleMania-to-Top Gun assault on CNN is not the first time they ganged up ona rival.

You might rememberthe final weeks of the 2016 election, when Trump jumped on his Democratic opponentfor calling his supporters a basket of deplorables.

Wow. Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard working people, Trump wrote on Twitter, which he had been using for years, favoring thewritten word over GIFs.

I think it will cost her at the Polls! Trump concluded in his tweet in September.

Clintons deplorables labeldid, in fact, turn into a symbolof pride for many Trump fans. Its evolution into a full-blown meme gota strong assist from Trump Jr. a few days after his father tweeted.

That was nearlya year ago, and Trump Jr. claimed ignorance of the imagehed promoted.

Ive never even heard of Pepe the Frog, he told an ABC host who called the cartoon a white supremacist symbol. I thought it was a frog in a wig. I thought it was funny.

But if Trump Jr. was ameme novice then, he would learn much.

So would his father.

[A Reddit user who wrote about stabbing Muslims is claiming credit for Trumps CNN video]

Toward the end of 2016, many reporters began to write about a phenomenon theycalled fake news. As outlets such asPoliticoand NPR reported, thesewere manufactured news articles, originating onshady websites, designed to trick people into sharing fictions as facton social media.

Trump, at least as much as anyone, helped invert the terms meaning at first simply typing FAKE NEWS in all caps when someoneran a story he didnt like, buteventually applying it to virtuallyevery major news outlet in the United States.

And Trump Jr. followed up by extending fake news tohashtag form.

Trump supporters picked up on the trend, too, and inevitably, fake news became one of the political rightsfavorite memes.

Which bring us up to the present day, and the Trumps cooperativememe war onCNN.

No one is quite sure how a clipof Trumppummeling an anthropomorphized news networkat WrestleManiatraveled from Reddit to the presidents Twitter feed last weekend, where Trump adorned it with the hashtag: #FraudNewsCNN.

But travel itdid, and becameone of the presidentsmost popular tweets ever.

It also providedhis son with memetic inspirationfora full week.

A day after Trump tweeted the CNN-Wrestlemania clip, Trump Jr. retweeted one of countless variations that sprang up: CNN as Charlie Brown failingto kick a football held by Trump as Lucy.

Trump Jr. also went back tothe ancient hold-my-beer meme, retweeting an updated version that mocked CNN.

And he repeatedly tweeted the #CNNBlackmail hashtag accusingthe network of coercing an apology out of the Reddit user who created the WrestleMania meme.

A meme about a meme, yes.Trump Jr. had learned much sincehis first forayinto the world of Pepe the Frog.

Then, on Saturday, he shared one of the best Ive seen.

Best memes, that is. It was his fathers face pasted over Tom Cruises fighter pilotin the climactic scene of Top GunTrump chasing a CNN logopasted onwhat in the movie was aRussian-made MiG jet.

There may have been some unintended irony in Trump Jr.s selection. The same day, theNew York Times reportedthat he had met with a lawyer tied to the Kremlin during his fathers campaign.

But never mind. Trump and Trump Jr.have both downplayed investigations into the campaigns possible collusion withRussian hackers as fake news.

In thelatest iteration of the intergenerationalcycle ofmemes, the fatherblasts CNN out of the sky, and the sonshares it with the world.

More reading:

A Reddit user who wrote about stabbing Muslims is claiming credit for Trumps CNN video

We are not fake news: At a Trump-free correspondents dinner, White House press has its say.

From old photo to right-wing meme to Trumps twitter: The journey of one Schumer/Putin pic

See more here:
Donald Trump Jr. loyally prosecutes his father's meme war on CNN - Washington Post