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Trump's meme state media

A new era of propaganda, built on meme accounts and friendly influencers, is supercharging the president's power to drown out dissent.

Drew Harwell

Drew Harwell

— 2 min read
Trump's meme state media
The influencer in chief. (María Alconada Brooks / Washington Post)

Full story: Inside the White House’s new media strategy to make Trump ‘KING’

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After President Trump's inauguration, it was hard not to notice how quickly the White House's social media presence had morphed into a viral, hard-charging, controversy machine.

Washington's official megaphones had always been boring and straightforward by design. But now, under Trump's "Golden Age" regime, its online accounts were gleefully posting memes about mass deportation, including a video amplifying the sound of men in chains. ("If you enjoy this, you need to deeply reflect on the kind of person you aspire to be," one commenter replied.)

To understand what changed, I spent time talking to people in and around the Trump administration's secretive digital team – a fast-twitch social media and influencer operation working to shape public opinion, drown out dissent and dominate the traditional press.

It was, as the team's leader told me, a "smash-mouth" approach designed to get attention by any means – and it was working. But what does it mean for our democracy when the people in power have a supercharged bully pulpit, and can turn every serious policy into a meme?

The White House’s rapid-response account posted 207 times to X on Tuesday, the day of Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress, or nearly nine posts an hour, including Trump sound bites, supporter interviews and Democrat-slamming memes and attack lines. When a Fox News analyst called Trump “the political colossus of our time,” the team got the clip cut, captioned and posted online within 11 minutes.

In press rooms, the administration is welcoming friendly “new media” podcasters, X users and YouTubers to deliver what White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt calls “news-related content” to their millions of followers.

And on social media, the White House is firing off talking points across every platform in a bid to win online attention and reach viewers who have tuned out the traditional press. In an X post, communications director Steven Cheung described their goal: “FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE.”

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