politics
March 23, 2026
Trump’s video game war: AI, memes and a simplistic narrative have flattened the conflict
What was supposed to be a quick win has become a quagmire, so it now must be reduced to a dopamine hit
TL;DR
- The Trump administration is portraying the war on Iran as a remote, detached spectacle akin to a video game or social media event.
- Video montages featuring pop culture references and captions like 'Justice the American way' are used to promote the war.
- A senior White House official described an 'entertainment factor' and 'banger memes' in their approach to war.
- This simplification serves a political purpose by avoiding complex narratives and justifications for a war that has become a quagmire.
- AI is being deployed at an unprecedented scale to streamline targeting processes, further removing human closeness to the conflict's details.
- The information ecosystem, characterized by social media feeds and the constant stream of content, contributes to a grotesque detachment from the war's reality.
- The challenge is to retain empathy and humanity in the face of political leaders and platform owners who benefit from effacing them.
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