A Government of Trolls

There will likely be several clearly serious issues about which I will write this week, but I am going to start with a topic that might, at least at first, seem somewhat frivolous. However, it is actually fairly important. In the government of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump, expertise is one of the least valued qualifications for a job in the administration. This point should be so obvious as to not be debatable. Does anyone believe that Pete Hegseth or Robert Kennedy, Jr. are qualified for their positions, let alone the most qualified people available? The most valued qualification appears to be loyalty to Trump, preferably displayed through unbridled obsequiousness. Secondary to an ability to demonstrate fealty through groveling is a talent for television appearances. This explains the proliferation of former Fox News personalities in the Trump administration. But just behind those two qualifications appear to be an ability to troll social media. This begins with Trump himself, the troll in chief.

Trump demonstrated his proclivity toward trolling on Saturday when he "truthed" a meme on his Truth Social social media network. The graphic showed military helicopters flying along Chicago, Illinois' lakeshore. The words "Chipocalypse Now" were scrawled on the picture, parodying the movie "Apocalypse Now," and Trump was pictured in the foreground in the guise of Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore. Kilgore, for those who have forgotten the movie, was the character that massacred an entire community of civilians so that he could go surfing. The meme is captioned, "I love the smell of deportations in the morning..." and "Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR". This was posted in the context of recent threats by Trump to deploy National Guard units to Chicago. As is essentially always the case, Trump didn't create the meme and probably had no involvement in it until it came to his attention, or more likely, the attention of his social media team. Trump routinely forwards memes that have been posted on social media by others, resulting in his repeatedly reposting text and images created by neo-Nazis, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and other members of the Internet fringe.

The ability to use artificial intelligence to create fake images and videos, some appearing quite realistic, has exploded the number of memes created by A.I. that Trump posts. This morning he posted a video allegedly showing former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi swearing profusely about her inability to make good stock trades since she left Congress. Of course, Pelosi has not left Congress. In the video, Pelosi complains that her husband is still in love with the "homeless hammer guy," a very crude allusion to the attack by a far-right conspiracy theorist on Paul Pelosi that almost killed him. Another A.I.-generated video shows Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie sumo wrestling. This is poking fun at two men who are known for being heavyset. As Pritzker has previously noted, Trump himself is not exactly svelte and, as such, Trump might want to look in the mirror before commenting on the weight of others. That highlights another aspect of the memes that Trump circulates. He is routinely depicted as having a well-toned, muscular body, far from the reality.

Trump, and his followers, employ trolling for a number of goals. Probably the primary intention is to stir a reaction from their opponents, mostly liberals. One of the main motivators of MAGA politics is a desire to "own the libs." Attacking liberals with trollish memes is often a two-for-one accomplishment. If liberals respond, it helps bring attention to the meme and spreads whatever message might be contained within it to a wider audience. Despite the crudeness of the memes and the misinformation that they normally contain, they have a built-in defense mechanism that itself is a further attack on those who object. If you complain about a meme, you are depicted as a humorless scold who can't take a joke. Therefore, for instance, Trump can suggest that Paul Pelosi is engaged in an affair with the man who almost killed him and be given a pass, but those who criticize him demonstrate that they are "owned" and lack a sense of humor. There is a constant pattern of a false and vulgar meme being circulated, which provokes objections. The MAGA reaction to the complaints is then something along the lines of "you triggered, bruh?" For some reason, being triggered in our society is a source of shame. Frankly, if you are not triggered by jokes about a man being beaten with a hammer nearly to death, perhaps you might want to rethink your humanity. Yet, here we are.

Trump is a natural troll, as are many of those who work for him. One exception, however, is Vice President J.D. Vance. Vance attempts to troll, but mostly comes off as foolish or worse. For example, he recently tweeted that "Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military." This was in relation to the bombing by U.S. forces of a boat off the coast of Venezuela that was alleged to have been carrying drugs. It's bad enough that Vance believes that killing defenseless civilians is the "highest and best" use of the military — I would have thought that defending our territory from an armed invasion or an international threat along the lines of Hitler's Germany would have been higher and better — but then Vance went on to make things worse. When Brian Krassenstein replied saying, "Killing the citizens of another nation, who are civilians, without any due process, is called a war crime," Vance responded to say, "I don’t give a shit what you call it". I am not sure that Vance's posting that he doesn't care about being involved in war crimes is owning Krassenstein quite as hard as Vance seems to believe.

Many Trump trolls who now have positions in his administration have spent their entire existences, or at least a major part of them, in environments in which trolling is appreciated and rewarded. As such, that is their normal means of communication and, if they are exposed to "normal" people, appear quite strange and baffling. Take, for instance, Sebastian Gorka. This guy is practically a Bond villain come to life. He is currently Trump's senior director for counterterrorism. Appearing on Newsmax back in April, Gorka spoke about the Venezuelans who were renditioned to El Salvador. He also addressed the status of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran who was also sent there due to "administrative error." Gorka suggested that U.S. society was divided between those who "love America" and those who "hate America." According to Gorka, those who "love America" include Trump and his supporters. Those who "hate America" were anyone opposed to Trump and who, therefore, was "on the side of the cartel members, on the side of the illegal aliens, on the side of the terrorists." To be clear, what Gorka is saying is that if a U.S. citizen argues in favor of due process, or even for the correction of an admitted error, that person is siding with terrorists. Going further, Gorka said that "And you have to ask yourself, are they technically aiding and abetting them? Because aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists is a crime in federal statute." Therefore, advocating in favor of due process should, in Gorka's mind, be a crime. Gorka has turned the rule of law on its head. Rather than the rule of law being fundamental to the American system of justice, he considers it to be a tool of terrorists and criminals and advocating for the rule of law is a criminal act. That might play well on Newsmax, but I doubt that idea would be popular outside of right-wing echo chambers.

Another troll in the Trump administration is Connor Clegg, currently employed — of all places — in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. According to Taking Points Memo:

In 2018, while a student at Texas State University, Clegg was impeached as student body president over uncovered social media posts in which he mocked Asian tourists. The Instagram posts were of Clegg taking photos of himself with unsuspecting tourists who appeared to be Asian with hashtags such as “#pearlharborwasbad,” “#assholes,” and “#kimjongil.”

While some might argue that 2018 is a long time ago, Clegg has continued to post inflammatory posts on social media. Last year, for instance, Clegg tweeted a long rant in which he complained about a foreign-born traffic enforcement officer who had attempted to tow Clegg's car. Clegg criticized the officer's accent and called him a "foreigner with a tin badge" who had "no concept of western rites and tradition". He complained that "foreigners are given the privilege to enforce this nation’s ‘laws’ unto citizens." After the Roe v. Wade decision was overturned, Clegg posted a slew of anti-abortion tweets. One said, "Say goodbye to your abortions Whores" and had a picture of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh with "laser eyes". He also tweeted, "Why is that the ugliest people are always the most pro-abortion?"

Not surprisingly, trolling has become an official method of Trump administration communications. Soon after Trump announced a surge of federal officers into the District of Columbia, Immigration and Customs Enforcement purchased two new trucks, had them wrapped in a style similar to Trump's private jet, included gold ICE logos, and had "President Donald J. Trump" printed in gold. The pair of vehicles cost over $700,000. They were filmed driving around Washington, DC, and then a series of videos for social media were produced with rapper DaBaby's song "Toes" playing in the background.

Memes have become so essential to White House communications that the official White House Twitter account tweeted a meme with a caption promising that "The memes will continue." Last February, the White House account posted footage of immigrants boarding airplanes while wearing handcuffs and leg chains. The video was captioned "ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight", alluding to videos that feature sounds meant to be calming and pleasant. The memes posted by the White House often reference extremist and neo-Nazi imagery. A recent tweet clearly was a play on the title of a book supporting white nationalism. NPR has a good article describing how the Trump administration has employed various styles of memes to communicate with the public. The article analyzes how the Department of Homeland Security has employed nostalgia in a seemingly innocent manner “to evoke a nationalist, white-centered view of who the American homeland is for".

Trump administration trolling is repeatedly successful in signalling to supporters while upsetting opponents. Often imitating Internet trends, memes provide a way for Trump officials to claim innocence or that they are joking, while simultaneously communicating subtle, or not-so-subtle, messages that would ordinarily be controversial. The obvious problem with staffing an administration with trolls is that while they may be successful trolls, they are generally not particularly skilled in running a government. In the Trump administration, reality is what Trump claims it to be. If the monthly jobs report is bad, the solution is not to create new jobs, but rather to claim the report was rigged and fire the person responsible for the report. What should be serious discussions are turned into farces by trollish posts and memes. It is ironic, therefore, that one of the most successful Democratic counterattacks has been by California Governor Gavin Newsom, who began a campaign of trolling Trump by parodying Trump's own social media style. That American political discourse has devolved to the level of troll vs troll is probably not a good sign for our future.