ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the participatory, social inventions of networked technologies facilitate the amateur production of commonplaces that, in turn, mobilize the democratic potential of networked users as a multitude. In context, the Ted Cruz/Zodiac meme exemplifies how topoi can serve as inventional resources by functioning as repositories of the common knowledge created via shared experiences. The chapter traces the potential of the Cruz/Zodiac meme in three parts. It illustrates Cruz/Zodiac within memetics and the 2016 presidential primary elections. The chapter explores how the meme evokes and creates politically oriented commonplaces. It also explores how such activation of commonplace arguments can mobilize radical democracy by organizing networked participants as a multitude. As part of giving form to networked argument, networked commonplaces create sites for the implementation of radical democracy. Moreover, the form of networked commonplaces also allows participants to negotiate democratically on perspectives they consider most important.
