The war in Iran has entered its seventh week, a conflict fought with bombs, planes and memes. But while the United States and Iran trade viral videos, the wallets of U.S. citizens are drained, American soldiers are returning home in body bags and the president who promised “NO NEW WARS” is taking orders from Israel. Between the “SpongeBob SquarePants” airstrikes posted on the official X and TikTok accounts of the White House and Lego-animated propaganda, outrage turned into scrolls.
Memes and “s—posting” are nothing new for President Trump. As far back as his first presidential campaign, Trump used memes to his advantage, attempting to make the competition look stupid and himself appear strong. This pattern continued in the 2020 presidential election and intensified in 2024. But there is a significant difference between mocking political opponents and posting clips from “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Call of Duty” over footage of real airstrikes with real casualties for “hype.”
Anyone with a social media account — whether it’s Instagram, TikTok or X — knows how easy it is to get hooked and scroll for hours, chasing instant gratification. The cost of “doomscrolling” is context; a user sees a headline but rarely the full picture. The internet, for better or for worse, has changed something fundamental: it’s all for laughs. A story about a school full of children getting bombed in Minab receives the same attention span as a meme.
While the public continues to scroll and the war escalates, Trump is losing support from the voters who put him in office. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump ran on the promise of putting America first, lowering the cost of living, transparency regarding the Epstein files, and no new wars. And yet, the national average price of gas shot up to $4.09 per gallon, according to AAA.
Trump recently called his past supporters “weaklings” for wanting transparency on the Epstein files. Additionally, he threatened to use military force to gain control over Greenland, and has now fully broken his promise of no new war with the conflict in Iran.
With all of those broken promises, prominent conservative influencers on social media like Megyn Kelly and Candace Owens expressed a loss of faith in Trump.
In an X post, Owens said, “The 25th Amendment needs to be invoked. He is a genocidal lunatic. Our Congress and military need to intervene. We are beyond madness.”
Trump’s response to his former supporters has lacked a cohesive justification for the military involvement. Instead, he takes to Truth Social to accuse them of having low IQs. Yet somehow, that’s not what cost him his voters’ support. On April 13, the day of Orthodox Easter, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus on Truth Social. On the same day, he criticized Pope Leo and threatened to wipe out an entire civilization. If that wasn’t bad enough, he had already badmouthed Pope Leo on the same day while also casually threatening to wipe out an entire civilization.
The response that followed was now former Trump supporters posting videos of themselves burning their MAGA hats, calling the image blasphemy. Trump’s excuse?
“I thought it was me as a doctor,” Trump said to reporters at the White House.
Trump is not only breaking the promise by waging a war in Iran, but he’s waging a war on the public’s ability to take any of it seriously. If we continue laughing, doomscrolling and desensitizing ourselves to this carnage, the joke won’t be on Trump. It’ll be on all of us.
***
TOP PHOTO: An AI generated image depicting President Donald Trump as a God-like figure posted April 13 to his Truth Social account, later taken down due to backlash. (@realdonaldtrump/ Truth Social)
Kian Amininejad is the Senior Staff Writer of The Express. Follow him on X @Kian_Amininejad.
