Margaret Hartmann, senior editor for New York Magazine's Intelligencer section, ponders whether people are strong enough "mentally and physically, to watch what the Trump White House is posting on TikTok?"

The White House TikTok account was launched in August by the Trump administration to communicate its message and appeal to a broader audience, particularly younger voters.

"The first post from the official account (not to be confused with the personal account Donald Trump mostly abandoned after the 2024 campaign) featured the president declaring, “I am your voice!” Hartmann explains.

Several months into the account's existence, Hartmann describes its voice as exuding those "'fellow kids' vibes you’d expect from any septuagenarian official’s social-media account."

"But there’s also some uniquely Trumpian content that’s truly hard to watch," she adds.

Hartmann breaks down this content into sections to make it more digestable.

"I have compiled the worst of the @whitehouse feed. The posts fall into three categories: incompetently executed memes, straight-up-racist videos, and Trump thirst traps. How many can you watch — sound on, start to finish — before you have to tap out? Can you make it through the “sexy” Trump montage set to that Charli XCX “fall in love, again and again” song without pausing as a shudder of disgust rolls through your body? It took me three tries! Good luck!" she writes.

Her first category is "Infuriatingly Incompetent Memes," and includes Trump's taunts of pop culture titan Taylor Swift.

"While Trump once declared, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!,” he is also desperate for the pop superstar’s approval. So it’s very on-brand for the White House feed to try to get in on the Life of a Showgirl TikTok trend," she writes of Swift's latest record-breaking release, selling a whopping 4.002 million album units in its first week in the United States and much, much more since.

"But while this sound usually accompanies people doing the dance from Swift’s latest video, the White House just posted a series of increasingly weird photos, culminating in the “Fate of America” … which is Trump pretending to work a shift at McDonald’s?" Hartmann notes.

Another of these incompetent memes, Hartmann notes, is one titled "Rare aesthetic: Democrat Shutdown,” which, she says "could have worked, but half the pictures don’t make any sense. Sure, there are a few shots of Trump’s racist posts featuring Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero, but then we see … Democrats speaking to reporters? Shots of Congress in session? A protester showing their support for federal workers amid Trump’s DOGE cuts?"

Which brings her to her second category titled "Disgustingly Racist," in which "the Wicked references don’t even track here. A snippet of Cynthia Erivo singing “Defying Gravity” plays over footage of ICE arresting people, and the text says, “Ahhh that deportation feeling …” The movie musical contains a whole song about “loathing,” but this account can’t even troll properly," she says.

The third category, "Nauseatingly Romantic," includes the sudden "videos that aimed to highlight the heterosexual passion between the president and the First Lady," in the wake of the emails that showed Trump's ties to deceased convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

These posts, Hartmann says, are "why everyone needs to stop complaining about those Wuthering Heights trailers. No matter how badly Emerald Fennell butchers the Emily Brontë novel, it can’t be as heinously unwatchable as this."

From Your Site Articles