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“It’s 4chan s**t": The govt's deranged social media presence
"You see Trump administration accounts that look like they’re literally run by Groypers," Charlie Warzel tells us.
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It’s safe to say that when the president of the United States is posting an AI-generated video of him dropping feces on Americans from a fighter jet, something is wrong.
But, as we all know, something has been wrong for a long time.
Trump’s use of social media has always been disturbing and bizarre, even if it feels like things have gotten worse over time. Now, however, he’s remaking government social media accounts in his own deranged image.
Consider this recent Department of Homeland Security tweet that characterizes immigrants as a plague to be destroyed by ICE.
Or observe how the Department of Labor has recently been spreading full on “Defend the Fatherland” propaganda.
To get some expert insight into Trump’s online radicalization and how that’s reflected in the federal government’s Nazi bar social media presence, we connected with Atlantic staff writer Charlie Warzel, who wrote about these issues earlier this year in a piece about the “gleeful cruelty of the White House X account.”
“Now you see Trump administration accounts that look like they’re literally run by Groypers,” Warzel told us. “What Homeland Security is tweeting out isn’t even dog-whistling anymore. They’re posting memes that look like old 1950s Coke commercials and say things like, ‘We’ve got to return.’”
“It’s 4chan shit.”
The full conversation between Warzel and Public Notice contributor Thor Benson, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.
