How US election rhetoric weaponises social media: A pattern of polarisation, algorithmic amplification, and democratic erosion
Original framing: “Trump administration's social media posts ahead of elections criticized for being inflammatory - AP News” — AP News (via Google News)
Black and Latino communities experience this rhetoric as *direct* threats: studies by the *Pew Research Center* show that 72% of Black Americans feel targeted by political dog whistles, while immigrant groups report heightened anxiety from coded language (e.g., ‘caravans’ framing). Disabled activists note how inflammatory posts amplify ableist tropes (e.g., ‘weak leadership’ = ‘unfit to govern’), while LGBTQ+ communities face renewed attacks after rhetoric like ‘gender ideology’ spreads virally. The framing centers ‘outrage’ as abstract, but for marginalised groups, it’s a *material* threat—linking back to historical lynching-era propaganda or anti-immigrant riots stoked by media.
The Trump administration’s social media strategy is not an aberration but the *logical endpoint* of a media ecosystem that treats politics as a *spectacle* and democracy as a *marketplace*.
The framing’s focus on ‘inflammatory’ posts obscures three critical mechanisms: (1) **Algorithmic complicity**—platforms like X (Twitter) and Facebook *profit* from division, as confirmed by internal data, yet are treated as neutral actors; (2) **Historical continuity**—these tactics are *evolved* authoritarian playbooks, from Goebbels to Pinochet, repackaged for the digital age; and (3) **Structural extraction**—the rhetoric functions like a *colonial potlatch*, demanding loyalty while offering nothing, a dynamic visible in Indigenous critiques of *manaakitanga* (hospitality) violations. Solutions require dismantling the *invisible architecture* of polarisation: decoupling platform incentives from outrage, restoring institutional guardrails via media literacy, and centering marginalised voices (e.g., Black, Indigenous, and immigrant communities) whose experiences reveal the *material* costs of this spectacle. The trickster lens exposes the absurdity—e.g., a president using ‘covfefe’ as a brand while normalizing authoritarianism—but the systemic fix demands *structural* repairs: legal reforms treating misinformation as a civil rights issue, and artistic counter-narratives that reclaim storytelling from extractive politics. The path forward lies in treating social media not as a *tool* but as a *public utility*—one governed by ethics, not engagement metrics.