Memes and Body Bags

Corruption of Power GriftMatrix

What’s the White House’s wartime comms strategy?

“We’re over here just grinding away on banger memes, dude,” a senior WH official said.

That is an actual quote. From someone who works in the White House. About a war that has killed over 1,400 Iranians, 13 American service members, and wounded more than 200 U.S. troops across seven countries.

I need to back up.

Since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, the White House communications team has been producing TikTok-style videos that splice actual footage of bombings with clips from Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, SpongeBob SquarePants, Top Gun, Mortal Kombat, Wii Sports, and a Pixar movie about a lizard. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, posted the GTA cheat code for unlimited ammo alongside footage of a real person being blown up by a real missile.

One video got 60 million views. They’re bragging about racking up 3 billion impressions in four days like they’re running a sneaker drop.

A video posted the same week the Pentagon named two of the six soldiers killed by a drone used a Wii Sports baseball narrator saying “out of the park” over strike footage. Another featured bowling pins labeled “Iranian regime officials” being knocked down to cheering crowds. The SpongeBob one – and I cannot believe I’m typing this – showed SpongeBob saying “Want me to do it again?” followed by real military strikes.

You might recall that just hours into the first day of this war, a missile hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, Iran. Multiple independent investigations – the New York Times, BBC, Amnesty International, NPR – concluded the U.S. was likely responsible. The school was full of girls between 7 and 12 years old. Between 165 and 180 people were killed, most of them children, some crushed when the roof collapsed, some killed by what investigators say was a double-tap strike – meaning they hit it, waited for rescuers to arrive, and hit it again.

A preliminary U.S. assessment leaked to CBS confirmed America “likely” did it by accident, using outdated intelligence that still marked the area as a military installation. The military base had been closed for 15 years.

That’s the war the White House is meming about.

Senator Raphael Warnock put it plainly: the White House is putting out stuff like this while flag-draped coffins come home to broken families. And that was before the death count doubled.

Thirteen American service members are now dead. Six of them were crew on a refueling aircraft that went down in Iraq. About 200 more have been wounded. The first 19 days of the war cost taxpayers roughly $20 billion. Gas prices are up nearly a dollar a gallon since February 28. Oil is flirting with $110 a barrel. Fertilizer prices are up 35%. Economists are warning about a cost-of-living shock that will roll through groceries, flights, heating bills, and shipping for months even after this is over.

The majority of Americans don’t want this.

An NPR/Marist poll found 56% oppose the military action. Only 36% approve of Trump’s handling of Iran. Quinnipiac has his approval on the war at 38%. Two-thirds of voters under 35 are against it. Even among Republicans, the “strong” approval numbers are soft – just 37% in the CNN poll. And these kinds of polls tend to lean Republican by up to 13%.

Tucker Carlson called it “absolutely disgusting and evil.” The former director of the National Counterterrorism Center resigned over it. MAGA folks are starting to call Trump out – finally.

And Congress? Congress had its chance.

The Senate voted 47-53 to reject a War Powers resolution. The House voted 212-219. One Republican senator, Rand Paul, voted to constrain the president. One Democrat, John Fetterman, voted to let him keep going. That’s it. Both chambers looked at an unauthorized war that the majority of their constituents oppose and said, nah, the commander-in-chief can keep posting SpongeBob.

There’s one more shot coming.

A new War Powers resolution led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer could come to the House floor the week of March 23. It gives the administration 30 days from February 28 to either end operations or come to Congress for authorization, and it bans ground troops without congressional approval. It’s the compromise version – not an immediate withdrawal, but a demand that someone, somewhere, make the case for why this should continue. Whether it passes depends entirely on whether enough Republican members decide that their constituents filling up at $4 a gallon deserve a vote on a war no one asked for.

That’s the thing people can actually do right now. Call your House representative. Call your senators. The Gottheimer resolution vote is days away. The 60-day War Powers clock runs out at the end of April. Members of Congress will be home for recess soon, holding town halls, reading their voicemails. They need to hear that meming a war while people are dying is not a communications strategy.

The White House spent its week making a video that references Braveheart, John Wick, Superman, Halo, Deadpool, Better Call Saul, AND Transformers – all in one clip – and ending it with the Mortal Kombat “Flawless Victory” screen.

Meanwhile, gas stations in California are posting $6.50 a gallon. A 29-year-old woman in Bahrain was killed by debris from an intercepted missile. Iran is threatening to hit energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. Oil could go to $150. Grocery prices are next.

Winning.

Sources