Why Trump’s White House is using video game memes to recruit for ICE

Culture Donald Trump Elon Musk Games Halo Hillary Clinton ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Joe Biden Steve Bannon Trump administration US politics

admin Oct 31, 2025 0

Why Trump’s White House is using video game memes to recruit for ICE

Just days after Microsoft announced Halo: Campaign Evolved, the next game in its famous science-fiction series, the White House

This spate of sharing video game imagery may seem odd, but Trump and his various allies have been leaning into gamer culture for nearly a decade. Trump has courted gamers – a demographic that includes a significant subsection of disaffected young men – since his first presidential campaign. Media executive

The South African entrepreneur bought Twitter in October 2022 and quickly reinstated Trump’s account and a host of others that had been banned. Musk, who regularly invokes gamer culture and posts memes on his own X account, and spent a few weeks earlier this year embroiled in a ridiculous fight over whether he was faking his gamer credentials (he was), loosened the restrictions on hate speech on the platform and boosted the exact kind of toxic gamer culture that the White House is now courting.

Since Trump’s January inauguration, the White House and various federal institutions have taken up meme posting. Last month, the Department of Homeland Security’s official X account and the White House’s official TikTok account shared a video of ICE raids set to the Pokémon theme music, interspersing imagery from the animated show with clips of agents arresting people and using the “Gotta catch’em all” slogan from the franchise. The Pokémon Company International told the BBC that “permission was not granted for the use of our intellectual property”. The video is still up at the time of writing.

The video game industry at large has long remained silent when it comes to the reactionary politics and ideologies spreading among its communities. For millions of Americans who play games, but are massively embarrassed by an administration that is warning pregnant women against taking Tylenol, or pushing the narrative that immigrants are parasites, or that diversity, equity and inclusivity movements result in unqualified workers, watching this unfold is incredibly frustrating. The more the administration leans into video game iconography and internet memes, the more video game companies find themselves associated with the divisive and reactionary politics of the right – whether they want it or not.

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Author: 360 Technology Group