Jauhn Etienne Villaruel

A Donald Trump supporter yells at demonstrators outside of Madison Square Garden as Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump makes a campaign appearance on October 27, 2024, in New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images via AFP/File

Article (news)

Trump

Agence France-Presse

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1743572916012Screen Shot 2025-04-02 at 1.47.58 PM.png" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">A Donald Trump supporter yells at demonstrators outside of Madison Square Garden as Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump makes a campaign appearance on October 27, 2024, in New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images via AFP/File</span></span></span></div><div><br/></div><p>NEW YORK, United States — Posting for provocation&#x27;s sake has long been the province of internet antagonists and the alt-right, but these days, even the official White House X account is embracing the communications strategy that often celebrates others&#x27; suffering.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/world/2024/11/28/-anti-woke-americans-hail-death-of-diversity-inclusion-policies-as-another-domino-topples-1133">&#x27;Anti-woke&#x27; Americans hail &#x27;death&#x27; of &#x27;diversity, inclusion&#x27; policies as another domino topples</a></div><p>Recently, the account posted about the arrest of a weeping, handcuffed alleged felon before her deportation by depicting her likeness in the <a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/technology/2025/3/28/copyright-questions-loom-as-chatgpt-s-ghibli-style-images-go-viral-0959">AI-generated Ghibli style</a> that has flooded the internet, giving the image of her sobbing an animated aesthetic.</p><div><br/></div><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display:flex;max-width:550px;width:100%;margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:10px"><iframe id="twitter-widget-0" scrolling="no" frameBorder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="" title="X Post" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-0&amp;features=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%3D%3D&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=1905332049021415862&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fod2-workbench-web.abs-cbn.com%2F%23%2Fworkspace%2Fmonitoring%3Fitem%3Durn%3Anewsml%3Aod2-workbench-api.abs-cbn.com%3A2025-04-02T05%3A57%3A52.113052%3A3fae35a7-4738-4e3e-b425-dee0bb9d58aa%26action%3Dedit%26popup&amp;sessionId=7ce8e6b03e424d9ad3cba78eb4dcc1c91f3688d3&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&amp;width=550px" style="position:static;visibility:visible;width:550px;height:1408px;display:block;flex-grow:1" data-tweet-id="1905332049021415862"></iframe></div><script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charSet="utf-8"></script><div><br/></div><p>Not long prior, the account posted a video of shackled deportees set to the tune of &quot;Closing Time,&quot; the 90&#x27;s-era Semisonic hit.</p><p>&quot;I think it sums up our immigration policy pretty well: &#x27;You don&#x27;t have to go home but you can&#x27;t stay here,&#x27;&quot; said Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, quoting the lyrics with a smile as she defended the message, which Semisonic immediately denounced.</p><p>And then there was the Valentine&#x27;s Day post: &quot;Roses are Red / Violets are Blue / Come Here Illegally / And We&#x27;ll Deport You&quot; read a card featuring the floating heads of President Donald Trump and his border czar, Tom Homan.</p><p>For Marcus Maloney, a sociology professor at Coventry University, it is a social media strategy that speaks to &quot;the 4Chanification of American politics.&quot;</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/01/20/21/meme-accounts-could-be-disinformation-actors-warns-prof">Meme accounts could be &#x27;disinformation actors,&#x27; warns prof</a></div><p>An image-based online forum that has become a hub of disinformation, 4Chan was an early home of &quot;shitposting,&quot; a brand of internet communication intended to shock, offend or muddle discourse with absurdity.</p><p>And if Trump 1.0 embraced the 2016-era alt-right &quot;shitposters&quot; who bolstered his candidacy, Trump 2.0 is incorporating their methods into official communication channels.</p><p>It is a new tactic on an account that not long ago, even in the Republican president&#x27;s first term, featured a stream of press releases and relatively innocuous statements.</p><p>Responding to online outrage over the Ghibli portrayal of a deportation arrest, White House communications official Kaelan Dorr re-posted the image, vowing that &quot;the arrests will continue. The memes will continue.&quot;</p><p>&quot;They&#x27;re leaning pretty heavily into meme culture and to chronically online individuals,&quot; said Jacob Neiheisel, a political science professor at the University of Buffalo.</p><p>&quot;That&#x27;s where a lot of the energy in the MAGA movement is.&quot;</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>OFFENSIVE &#x27;OUTSIDER&#x27;</strong></div><div><br/></div><p>Trump presented himself as the iconoclastic opposite of the more polished Democrats when he won his first term.</p><p>By the time he won his second, &quot;the gloves were really off in terms of his communication style -- and people really responded to that,&quot; Maloney said, adding that the offensiveness can actually come off as more &quot;authentic.&quot;</p><p>&quot;That offensiveness signals a kind of outsider status,&quot; he continued, &quot;even though we&#x27;re talking about a guy who&#x27;s a billionaire.&quot;</p><p>The trolling now adopted by the White House is meant to simultaneously shock and be brushed off as a joke, the genre of &quot;locker room talk&quot; that has been a through-line of Trump&#x27;s non-consecutive presidencies.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/nation/2025/1/10/meta-s-fact-check-pivot-to-hit-orgs-in-ph-global-south-worst-experts-1549">Meta’s fact-check pivot to hit orgs in PH, ‘Global South’ worst — experts</a></div><p>The former reality TV star has brought that genre&#x27;s energy to governing, firing off frenetic statements that often denigrate his opponents and apply crass labels to them.</p><p>This style appeals to people already fluent in trolling, particularly younger males, Neiheisel said: &quot;It&#x27;s funny for them. It&#x27;s entertainment.&quot;</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>DEMEANING AND TRIVIALIZING</strong></div><div><strong></strong></div><p><strong></strong>Another of the White House&#x27;s infamous posts likened images and sounds of shackled people boarding a deportation plane to ASMR, the auditory-sensory phenomenon that sees people find relaxation or pleasure in certain sounds.</p><p>The flippant language &quot;hurts, ultimately, the gravitas of the presidency -- the world&#x27;s most powerful office -- and it hurts the perception of it not only domestically but internationally,&quot; said Mark Hass, a digital marketing expert and strategic communication professor at Arizona State University.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/business/05/08/20/a-meme-a-day-keeps-lockdown-blues-away-study">A meme a day keeps lockdown blues away: study</a></div><p>&quot;It trivializes&quot; important issues like immigration and demeans people, Hass said.</p><p>And it can represent an insidious reflection of the Trump administration&#x27;s political aims, Maloney said. That callousness can open the door to policies that dehumanize or render vulnerable minority groups, he added.</p><p>&quot;It&#x27;s a nihilism in respect specifically to how things are communicated,&quot; he said.</p><p>&quot;In terms of what they&#x27;re actually doing,&quot; he said, it&#x27;s &quot;a mainstreaming of far-right dream policies.&quot;</p><div><strong>—By Maggy Donaldson, Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><br/></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEO: </strong></div><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4j5mTzM_WfI?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div>

<p>For a sociology professor at Coventry University, White House's social media strategy speaks to "the 4Chanification of American politics."</p>

For a sociology professor at Coventry University, White House's social media strategy speaks to "the 4Chanification of American politics."

Meme politics: White House embraces aggressive alt-right online culture

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Meme politics: White House embraces aggressive alt-right online culture

Agence France-Presse

Published Apr 02, 2025 01:55 PM PHT

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