“I’m gonna bomb the shit out of ’em,” Donald Trump said in a campaign speech in 2015, sending a warning to ISIS terrorists. After Operation Epic Fury began, the same line appeared in a TikTok video posted by the official White House account. Set to the Migos rap song “Walk It Talk It,” the president salutes Marines near his helicopter before the post cuts to clips of air strikes, displaying the caption “Can’t say he didn’t warn them.”
The post has been liked, shared, saved, or commented on 4.6 million times.
No one who has ever been in charge of the White House’s social media accounts has used them to deliver as much shock-and-awe provocation—or as often—as the social media team in Trump’s White House. The White House’s social media accounts are dense with pop culture references and images. These memes, said one White House official, are the essence of the digital communications strategy. And they are making people look, and then look again, often with glee or horror, depending on who is looking. The 24,000 comments about “bomb the shit out of ’em” range from “This is beyond embarrassing” to “Whoever runs this page needs a raise.”
