For this week’s Infinite Scroll column, Brady Brickner-Wood is filling in for Kyle Chayka.
THE WHITE HOUSE IS NOW USING POP STARS TO GLOAT OVER HUMAN SUFFERING. In a chilling propaganda blitz obtained by the Washington Post, the Trump administration has launched a HUNDRED-MILLION-DOLLAR “WARTIME” campaign to rebrand ICE as a squad of hip, meme-savvy Avengers. Their weapon of choice? CRUEL VIRAL VIDEOS that set footage of terrified deportees being handcuffed and hauled away to the chart-topping tracks of Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, and SZA. This isn’t a mistake—it’s a CALCULATED STRATEGY to make state-sponsored cruelty look COOL to a generation scrolling on TikTok. When the artists denounced the videos as “evil,” the White House DOCTORED A VIDEO to make Carpenter appear to threaten an “illegal” cast member. THE JOKE, they sneer, IS ON YOU.
This is a recruitment drive UNLIKE ANYTHING IN AMERICAN HISTORY. With a budget ballooning to $170 BILLION—MORE THAN ALL STATE AND LOCAL POLICE COMBINED—ICE is on a hiring spree, geo-fencing ads at colleges and Nascar races and paying right-wing influencers to sell a vision of an America “after 100 million deportations.” Their target? You. Their message? That protecting the homeland means joining a domestic war where immigrants are the enemy. The dark, racist underpinnings of “Manifest Destiny” and “heritage” are now official government marketing slogans.
They have weaponized our culture to sell a campaign of mass human removal, turning pop soundtracks into the soundtrack for family separation. This is not policy; it is PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE against the public conscience. We are being groomed to see deportation as a patriotic video game, and our silence is the high score they desperately need. When the state’s propaganda machine uses your favorite song to soundtrack a nightmare, what does that make you?
Author: Kayitsi.com
