Imagine a White House social media feed constantly filled with insults for rivals and praise for allies. Picture an FCC chairman responding to journalists with GIFs, or an FBI director sharing crime scene evidence and arrest news on X (formerly Twitter). This isn’t a hypothetical; it’s the new reality.
Throughout the first nine months of Donald J. Trump’s intensely digital presidency, his relentless ‘always-be-posting’ approach has been enthusiastically adopted by his inner circle. These top aides have fully embraced internet-native tactics, fundamentally transforming traditional governmental communication norms.
This shift includes a continuous flow of provocative content like trolling, memes, and AI-generated imagery from officials, often appearing on official government channels. Examples range from ‘ASMR’ videos depicting chained prisoners and Ghibli-style cartoons of deportation efforts, to a bold ‘Apocalypse Now’-inspired image hinting at a presidential ‘war’ in Chicago.
Just in the past month, this audacious and often casual social media style has reverberated through national discussions almost daily. During federal budget talks, for instance, both Mr. Trump and the White House shared AI-generated images of Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, portraying him with a mustache and a sombrero – an act Mr. Jeffries condemned as racist.
Even traditionally reserved agencies have adopted this tone. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman, Brendan Carr, used smiling Jack Nicholson GIFs and ‘The Office’ clips to mark a late-night host’s temporary suspension. The Department of Homeland Security released a Pokémon-themed video and a ‘Mean Girl’ meme to promote deportations. And the FBI director, Kash Patel, posted watermelon emojis to ridicule Senator Adam Schiff, echoing earlier presidential comments about the senator’s appearance.
Journalist Hamilton Nolan, who recently covered this trend, observed, “They’re aggressive and loud and constantly on the attack.” He added, “It’s like turning the entire government into a message board argument.”
According to social media experts, the Trump administration’s current online efforts far surpass those of previous administrations, including digital pioneers like President Obama, who leveraged the internet for grassroots organizing and campaigning, and President Biden, who also had a dedicated digital strategy office.
These tactics are a direct extension of Mr. Trump’s personal online behavior, which ranges from ridiculing public figures to criticizing policy. The administration is also staffed with seasoned influencers who are deeply familiar with internet culture and understand their supporters’ appetite for online conflict. Rapid technological advancements, including AI and the widespread, often malicious use of bots by both domestic and foreign actors, have only intensified this digital amplification.
Collectively, the Trump team’s emphasis on these digital methods has frequently succeeded in shaping national discussions, controlling political narratives, and effectively gaining an advantage over their adversaries.
Whitney Phillips, an associate professor of information politics and media ethics at the University of Oregon, who has extensively studied online confrontational communication, stated, “As an overall communications strategy, trolling the libs has proven to be more politically, culturally and economically successful than NOT trolling the libs.” She observed that Mr. Trump effectively “built his brand on top of those dynamics.”
During the recent government shutdown, political attacks from White House social media feeds persisted, including more sombrero-themed posts. The Atlantic dubbed the impasse “the meme shutdown.” These official government posts were then widely shared across various platforms, carrying the implied endorsement of the federal government.
Such anti-Democratic Party posts, and similar content on other government sites, have drawn significant criticism, with many arguing they potentially violate the Hatch Act. This law forbids federal employees from engaging in political activities while on duty. Since federal employees manage these official social media accounts, taxpayers are effectively funding these partisan messages.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson commented on this strategy, asserting that “the success of the White House’s social media pages speak for itself.”
Jackson elaborated, “Through engaging posts and banger memes, we are successfully communicating the President’s extremely popular agenda. There’s a reason so many people try to copy our style — our message resonates.”
While the White House remained silent on which staffers generate these posts, a recent Truth Social update from the president—showing Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, as the Grim Reaper haunting Democrats—was attributed to the ‘Dilley 300 Meme Team.’ This group, self-proclaimed as ‘Trump’s online war machine,’ was founded by former Republican congressional candidate Brenden Dilley. He succinctly described his strategy on a podcast: “It doesn’t have to be true. It just has to go viral.”
Always Ready for a Fight, Never Apologetic
The Republican Party isn’t the sole player in the social media game, though Democrats are often perceived as less adept. In fact, politicians from both parties have recently posted confrontational videos related to the shutdown, featuring interactions with their colleagues.
In a recent interview, Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader from New York, acknowledged, “we’re also dealing with the social media,” admitting his party “didn’t do enough of, frankly, in the past.” This remark was widely criticized online as being out of touch.
However, some Democrats stand out. Zohran Mamdani, a New York City mayoral candidate, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York, have earned recognition for their effective use of social media to deliver messages and humorously critique opponents.
Last Sunday, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez encouraged her 9.4 million Instagram followers to lampoon what she termed ‘the puffery of insecure masculinity’ within the Trump administration. She specifically targeted top aide Stephen Miller, jesting about his height, claiming he “looks like he’s, like, 4-10.”
While knitting, the congresswoman quipped, “And he looks like he is angry about the fact that he’s 4-10.” (For the record, Mr. Miller is officially listed as a foot taller.)
Representative Eric Swalwell of California also joined in, employing Sabrina Carpenter’s song “Manchild” in a recent taunting post, continuing Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s theme of satirizing MAGA masculinity.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has earned accolades from fellow Democrats for his mockery of Mr. Trump’s often exaggerated social media style, especially the president’s use of all-caps. Newsom’s recent posts include an image of House Speaker Mike Johnson as a cartoon Minion, and an AI-generated video of Vice President JD Vance discussing the ‘history of couches,’ a nod to an off-color joke from a previous campaign.
Similar to the Trump team, the creators behind Mr. Newsom’s satirical posts largely maintain anonymity, with his office attributing them to a small group of aides collaborating directly with the governor.
Izzy Gardon, a spokesman for Newsom, stated, “Governor Newsom has spent years consuming right-wing media — and now he’s turning their own playbook against them. He’s holding up a mirror to MAGA, and it appears they hate what they see.”
Despite others adopting these tactics, Mr. Trump is still largely seen as the master of a style perfectly aligned with his unique personality: constantly combative, focused on immediate victories, and almost never expressing remorse.
Unlike his first term, many key figures in Mr. Trump’s second administration are social media natives, hailing from backgrounds in television and online culture. This includes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (a former Fox News host), Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt (who actively engaged online and welcomed podcasters and influencers to the White House press room), and even his Surgeon General nominee, wellness influencer Casey Means.
As Ms. Phillips succinctly put it, “Mike Pence was not an internet troll.”
Jonathan Nagler, co-director of NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics, noted Mr. Trump’s skill in online combat, calling it “a great medium for him” due to his penchant for sharp put-downs and pop-culture references.
Furthermore, Mr. Trump established his own social media platform, Truth Social, and enjoys the backing of Elon Musk, owner of X (formerly Twitter). Since acquiring X, Musk has eased restrictions on false or misleading content, a policy Mr. Trump has been accused of exploiting, such as his recent (and later deleted) Truth Social post about “medbeds”—a fictional device claimed to miraculously cure illnesses.
When Politics Becomes Trolling: The New Norm
The Trump administration’s online approach mirrors a wider internet trend, especially in political discourse: interactions are swift, sharp, often aggressive, and frequently prioritize impact over factual accuracy.
Adam Aleksic, a linguist and author of ‘Algospeak,’ commented on this rapid cycle: “Things move on so quickly that if you have a rebuttal or a fact check, we’ve already moved on, the culture is at a different place. All that matters is getting your message out there further. And that means playing into extreme stuff, stuff that generates comments, stuff that plays into current trends, all of that.”
This social media strategy hasn’t always resonated universally, even among Mr. Trump’s base. Recently, some supporters have used administration posts to demand the release of the Epstein files. There are also concerns that the unwavering loyalty of Trump’s aides and their reliance on online tactics have fostered an echo chamber, potentially disconnecting them from pressing real-world issues.
Moreover, these online actions have, at times, jeopardized legal proceedings. Last month, a Manhattan federal judge admonished two senior Justice Department officials for online comments regarding Luigi Mangione, accused in last year’s murder of a health insurance executive. These comments were deemed potentially prejudicial to a fair trial. Similarly, Mr. Patel faced criticism for prematurely posting a false report of an arrest in the Charlie Kirk case.
Prominent podcaster and comedian Theo Von, whose interviews with Mr. Trump helped attract young male voters during the campaign, recently objected to a Department of Homeland Security post. Shortly after the department shared a video celebrating deportations, Von demanded they stop using his past comments in their content.
Mr. Von explicitly requested, “Please take this down and please keep me out of your ‘banger’ deportation videos. When it comes to immigration my thoughts and heart are a lot more nuanced than this video allows.”
Christopher Bail, co-director of Duke University’s Polarization Lab, noted that in online political skirmishes, compromise is rarely a favored strategy.
He explained, “That leaves a lot of real estate for a small group of highly engaged, and typically much more radical people, who unfortunately create the broad-scale misperception that most people share their radical views.”
Bail added, “For a while there, I think a lot of people would say, ‘Oh yeah, there’s just some loud people online.’ But now, you know, the loud people online are really calling the shots.”
Experts suggest that the Trump administration’s adoption of online tactics mirrors the boisterous and aggressive tone often seen at his campaign rallies, where serious discussions are frequently undermined by dismissive commentary.
Shannon C. McGregor, a principal investigator at the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life at the University of North Carolina, described the phenomenon as, “It’s as if we have an administration of reply guys,” referring to those who constantly post online comments.
McGregor further suggested that this ‘nothing matters’ attitude serves a secondary purpose: it normalizes and even encourages the president’s supporters to celebrate, for instance, videos of masked individuals making arrests.
She concluded, “That, I think, is a purposeful tactic, allowing his supporters to enjoy, and to feel that permission to enjoy, what’s going on, but also to really undermine the seriousness of the impact. And I think that’s also a really, very chronically extremely online sentiment.”
Even critics like Mr. Nolan admit that the Trump social media machine is effective at “competing in that particular arena, in the Twitter arena basically.”
However, Nolan expressed concern about the long-term consequences of this intense focus, observing that during Mr. Trump’s first term, “there was still a bureaucracy in place that was actually running the government while he could do his performances.”
He concluded, “Now it’s like the operational bureaucratic class of the government has been purged. And it’s a completely performative class.”
Ms. Phillips, the Oregon University expert on online trolling, noted that her students now equate “politics” with “trolling.” This, she stated, makes it “extra challenging if you’re trying to call attention to something being historically unprecedented.”
Her reasoning: “Because, everything is precedented.”