Trump White House still trying to push federal policy via shitty Game Of Thrones memes
Suggesting that the federal government’s ability to push for its own policies has now well and truly reached the “Fuck it, what TV show do actual human beings watch?” stage of professional public relations, the Trump White House has, for the second time in recent months, resorted to tired-ass Game Of Thrones memes in order to rebuild public confidence in its aims. Per Deadline, Donald Trump’s Instagram account—which, like all of his social media accounts, has become a depressingly de facto communication wing of the United States government over the last two years—posted the following image earlier tonight:
For something that looks like it took some poor West Wing intern roughly 8 seconds to whip together in Photoshop, there’s actually kind of a lot to unpack here. Like we said, this is Trump’s second foray into basic meme-ology since November, when he offered up the equally creative “Sanctions Are Coming” in regards to diplomatic tensions with Iran. But while this latest image does get points for sounding marginally less like something your corny-ass dad might bust out after binge-ing the HBO show, we’re not sure it’s a great idea to place Trump’s piddly little border fence—which has so far only managed to block a bunch of well-meaning government employees from getting paid over the last few weeks—in the context of a series that doesn’t fuck around on the topic of massive goddamn walls.
There’s also the issue of that photo of Trump that’s looming over the whole thing like some sort of smug, dyspeptic, gold-hoarding dragon. We, personally, would not have gone with a shot more-or-less demanding the adjective “rheumy” to describe it, for instance, or at least might have picked one that didn’t suggest that Trump’s eyes were watering because he’d just ripped a particularly malodorous fart.
For what it’s worth, HBO has already made it clear that they hate this shit, which we have to assume is part of the point. (Take that, Hollywood elite whose cultural ubiquity is so powerful that not even Trump can resist co-opting it.) “We were not aware of this messaging,” the network said back in November, “And would prefer our trademark not be misappropriated for political purposes.” Meanwhile, series author George R.R. Martin has been a little more blunt about which role he thinks Trump would play in his gritty fantasy world. (It involves getting needlessly pissy and slapped around by Peter Dinklage, in case it wasn’t clear.)