When a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt who chose the location for President Donald Trump’s October 2025 meeting with President Vladimir Putin, she replied not too differently from how a 13-year-old boy would: “Your mom did.” Asked the same question, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung offered a more succinct response: “Your mom.”
Government officials using meme culture and AI-generated content represents a notable shift in communication style between the first and second Trump administrations. Government social media accounts, once sources of clear information, are now influencer-like meme channels for propaganda and reactionary “clapbacks.” This change signals a deeper problem: the delegitimization of official government communication undermines the public’s ability to distinguish reality from propaganda, trust institutions and participate meaningfully in democracy.
From Public Information to Performance and Propaganda
Government websites and social media accounts are created to provide the public with timely and accurate information about policies, programs, and government decisions. In theory, they exist to promote transparency and accountability.
In practice, however, many of these channels have shifted from informing the public to performing for them. Increasingly, official government platforms have adopted the language and logic of online culture: profanity, insults, memes and short-form videos designed to provoke or entertain audiences. Seriousness is framed as a weakness, while mockery and antagonism are rewarded.
This shift is especially visible in the rise of TikTok-style videos produced by official agencies. In February 2025, for example, the White House X account posted a video of immigrants in shackles boarding a deportation flight titled “ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight.” The White House using controversial policy to generate viral content is strange enough, but labelling the sounds of chains and handcuffs as ASMR – a video genre designed to bring calm and sensory comfort – frames deportations as background noise for passive consumption.
In mirroring influencer culture, the Trump administration is prioritizing virality over clarity. The goal is no longer to explain what is happening or why, but to ensure that content is being seen. People looking to these channels for information are now finding one-sided narratives, dehumanizing content, and ideological blame. To make matters worse, social media platforms boost posts that spark emotion and are easily consumed, not those that require critical evaluation.
The AI Problem
Artificial intelligence has accelerated this shift by making misleading political content cheap, fast, and visually persuasive. Users don’t have to pause to read a lengthy statement or interpret statistics – an AI-generated image or video can communicate a narrative instantly, and sometimes more effectively than a written one.
Unlike traditional media production, artificial intelligence eliminates human pushback. Where a human editor may question a message, flag ethical concerns, or reconsider the consequences of publication, AI will generate whatever it is asked to. Content that once required teams of trained professionals shaped by years of mentorship and media ethics can now be generated in seconds by a single person entering prompts into a chatbot.
The consequences of this are already visible. Over the past few months, President Trump and the White House have shared a series of AI-generated or digitally altered images that are not meant to inform or explain policy, but to humiliate and dehumanize political opponents and critics. On Feb. 6, for example, Trump posted an AI-generated clip on Truth Social that depicted former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes, prompting bipartisan criticism that the imagery invoked a racist trope.
The clip shows high-profile Democrats, including former President Joe Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as various animals bowing to Trump, who is depicted as a lion. It was part of a longer video promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, suggesting that the post was intended not only to demean Trump’s political rivals but also to persuade viewers that the election was stolen.
Ridiculous as these posts are, dismissing them as harmless because they are “fake” sets the stage for deeper distortions of truth. If any video or image can be dismissed as artificial and playful, and any false narrative can be visually manufactured on demand, truth itself becomes contestable. Reality is no longer fact, but something that can be debated.
Distrust in Democracy
The consequences of the delegitimization of government communication are no longer hypothetical. On Jan. 22, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted a photo of protestor Nekima Levy Armstrong with a neutral expression while being arrested in connection with an anti-ICE demonstration. Less than an hour later, the White House posted a different version where Armstrong’s face had been digitally altered to make it appear as if she were sobbing. When users pointed out that the image was manipulated, White House spokesman Kaelan Dorr responded in a post: “Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue.”
The lack of disclosure when posting altered images and the dismissal of people’s concerns about them mark a turning point. When official government accounts post manipulated photos of real people without acknowledgment or accountability, institutional communication ceases to be informational. Instead, it becomes performative, combative and indifferent to the truth.
In a political culture in which the president’s opponents are labeled “scum,” the press is dismissed as “corrupt,” and AI is making reality itself debatable, the public is forced to ask: Who am I supposed to trust?
In the absence of institutional credibility, people turn to the loudest voice, the most compelling visual, and the content that affirms their preexisting beliefs, even if it contradicts the truth. This is not merely a problem of misinformation, but one of democratic legitimacy.
If democratic institutions can no longer communicate truthfully, they can no longer be democratic. It is not only unethical and irresponsible for government officials to use their power to mislead or confuse the people they took an oath to serve – it is fundamentally un-American. We are now not only facing an increasingly uninformed citizenry, but one that is perpetually angry, reactionary and operating with a distorted sense of reality, making compromise and collaboration more difficult than ever.
Official government accounts should clearly label AI-generated images or videos and avoid posts that mock private citizens, ensuring that these channels remain trusted sources. Otherwise, public trust will continue to erode, deepening political division and weakening the foundations of democracy.
