Trump administration is using memes to turn mass deportation into a big joke
“Especially DHS is trying to use Twitter [and Instagram] It’s not just a form of recruitment, says Joan Donovan, an assistant professor at Boston University. Meme War: The Untold Stories of Online Fighting“I’m going to talk about the goals of their teenagers or twenties.”
When asked to comment, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, replied: “What a stupid little story. Who are these “experts”?
McLaughlin added: “The “cruel” is the victims of the media’s continued ignoring murder, rape, human trafficking and gang violence as you continue to bid for illegal foreigners for violent crimes.”
In response to a request for comment, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, “The White House social media account often highlights the deportations of heinous criminal illegal aliens who have terrorized American communities. WIRED and their so-called ‘experts, that they refused to provide additional information on, should cover what’s actually cruel—criminal illegal aliens murdering, raping, and assaulting innocent American cities as a direct result of Joe Biden’s open borders and Democratic sanctuary city policies.
(About 70% of ice detainees have no criminal record at all, and many convicted people have committed only minor crimes, such as traffic or immigration violations).
The mainstreaming of dehumanized humor is a trouble for Kurt Braddock, an assistant professor at the School of Communications in the U.S., who studies the persuasiveness of extremist propaganda. “I don’t think this messaging is bad because it’s mean, or because it’s sloppy, or because it’s unwise to the president’s office, although I do believe all of these things are true,” Braddock said. “My biggest problem is that it normalizes aggressiveness. The normalization of aggression and the normalization of dehumanization of other people, immigrants or other people, isn’t really violence.”
“Memes have always been at the heart of President Donald Trump’s political strategy: “One thing that’s very unique about Trump’s meme campaign in 2016 is that his Twitter account is almost the majority because he has only six or seven different audiences, and he talks to everyone at once. ”
This messy style of news now extends to his administration. Some of these posts accumulate thousands of likes and are reprotected on other platforms, such as on the Proud Boys’ Telegram channel or the large Pro-Police Facebook group. Some of them even inspired T-shirt design.
Overall, DHS social feed reflects a chaotic far-right ecosystem that combines the banal language of everyday memes with 4chan humor, old-fashioned white Sugg lady’s dog whistle and a proposal for Christian nationalism. New, shiny packaging is very important. “Image and music are emotionally in fact and data, often without emotional appeal,” said Brian Levin, founder of the Center for Hate and Extremism Research at California State University in San Bernardino. “It is a gift wrap that is emotionally familiar and comforting, and here is centered around conservation, preservation, fear and tribalism.”
