Last week, as the Trump administration was engulfed in controversy over its illegal military strikes near Venezuela (among numerous other crises), a Department of Homeland Security employee – I picture the worst sniveling, self-satisfied, hateful loser – got to work on the official X account. The state-employed memelord posted a video depicting Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officials arresting people in what appeared to be Chicago, celebrating the humiliation and incarceration of undocumented immigrants as some sort of patriotic achievement. The vile video borrowed, as they often do, from mainstream pop culture; in this case, a viral lyric from Sabrina Carpenter’s song Juno – “Have you ever tried this one?”, referring to sex positions – overlaid on clips of agents chasing, tackling and handcuffing people, cheekily nodding to all the methods in ICE’s terror toolbox.
Carpenter, as a pre-eminent pop star, was caught in an impossible position. Say nothing, as her friend and collaborator Taylor Swift did weeks earlier when the White House used her music in a Trump hype video, and risk appearing as if you condone the administration’s use of your art for a domestic terror campaign (the administration hasn’t yet used Swift for an ICE video, but I’m sure it’s coming); or engage, even if to honestly express your utter disgust, and risk bringing more attention to objectionable propaganda designed to provoke a response.
Carpenter chose the latter – “this video is evil and disgusting,” the singer replied to the video on X. “Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda” – which, as sincere as I believe that sentiment is, and as refreshing as it is to see a celebrity bluntly call out fascism, played right into the administration’s hands. News articles, including one written by me, brought more viewers to the original video, more attention to the ICE propaganda efforts, more fuel to their fire. Right on cue, the White House followed up with an official statement disparaging Carpenter’s response and continuing to peddle their lies about ICE deportations while still referencing her witty, popular lyrics: “Here’s a Short n’ Sweet message for Sabrina Carpenter: we won’t apologize for deporting dangerous criminal illegal murderers, rapists, and pedophiles from our country. Anyone who would defend these sick monsters must be stupid, or is it slow?” (Presumably you already know this, but the majority of people arrested by ICE have never been charged with a crime.)
This pop music rage-bait cycle has been happening a lot lately, at increasingly dizzying speeds. Under the reality-TV president, the job of an administration social media manager seems to be posting poisonous agitprop, and the employed memelords have been busy churning out videos soundtracked to internet-popular music, much to the chagrin of many artists. Just in the past few months, artists such as Olivia Rodrigo, Jess Glynne, Kenny Loggins, MGMT and Carpenter have vocally objected to the administration’s use of their music. It’s an easily identified, absolutely deadening pattern, best summed up by SZA, whose music was also used, on X: “White House rage baiting artists for free promo is PEAK DARK ..inhumanity +shock and aw tactics ..Evil n Boring.”
Evil, boring and obvious, though it’s still worth pointing out what exactly is going on here. This is the shitposter’s administration, built by and for influencers, governed by the posting logic of lowest-common-denominator engagement – a former gameshow host and self-styled heckler comedian as president, a former Fox News morning show host as secretary of defense, podcasters for head of the FBI and deputy attorney general. The administration isn’t even pretending otherwise; in response to Variety’s request for comment over the Swift-soundtracked TikTok video, a White House official replied: “We made this video because we knew fake news media brands like Variety would breathlessly amplify them. Congrats, you got played.”
How do musicians handle this? It’s a no-win situation, though I don’t think it’s futile for younger artists, particularly those with very online fanbases like Carpenter, to speak directly to the fear, racism, xenophobia and general delight of violence the administration seeks to normalize. I’d love to see more follow the lead of singers like Zach Bryan, whose anti-ICE lyrics provoked the White House, rather than being stuck in a loop of reactive engagement. Perhaps the answer isn’t full disengagement or disassociation but rather a clear-eyed assessment of what this is: a game to them, one that they will keep trying to play with whatever artist of the moment they can find. As Kaelan Dorr, a member of the White House communications team, said in response to outrage over a horrifically offensive, demeaning AI Ghibli-fied photo of an ICE detention: “The arrests will continue. The memes will continue.” Our disgust will, too, but our attention does not have to.
