This article first appeared in Volume 54, Issue 3 of our print edition of Index on Censorship, titled Truth, trust and tricksters: Free expression in the age of AI, published on 30 September 2025. Read more about the issue here.
One of the greatest successes of the MAGA movement as they forced their way into the American cultural mainstream was their capture of social media. The world’s richest man Elon Musk purchased Twitter, converted it to X.com and made it a hub for right-wing thought, using his immense reach as the most followed account on the platform to push his own political beliefs to millions. His work earned him a spot at Donald Trump’s side in government (albeit a short-lived one), and he wasn’t the only tech mogul in Trump’s inner circle. At the presidential inauguration on 20 January Musk sat alongside Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, who lists both Facebook and Instagram in his portfolio, as well as Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google chief Sundar Pichai, all taking positions on Trump’s front row for the event.
It follows, then, that as AI rapidly takes the world by storm, Donald Trump and his team would not wait to use this new technology for political propaganda and the 47th administration of the USA has tapped into a Pandora’s box of AI-generated memes. The New Yorker described the government’s use of AI images and videos as “a form of MAGA agitprop”.
Alex Mahadevan, director of digital media literacy programme MediaWise, told Deutsche Welle: “What AI actually ended up doing was just creating a propaganda machine on steroids… It’s not designed to deceive the viewer; it’s designed to push a political message.”
These examples of AI propaganda start with Donald Trump in opposition campaigning to be president, but continue on official government accounts of the Trump administration.
In the early stages of Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump posted this AI smear of her as a communist dictator at a rally in Chicago. The replies to the post were full of more AI generated images by MAGA supporters of Harris in Soviet garb, or interacting with former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
A couple of weeks later, towards the end of August 2024, Trump posted a collection of photos to his social media platform Truth Social of “Swifties for Trump”, the majority of which were AI generated – including this poster. Outrage followed online from Taylor Swift’s fans, as she has previously stated her dislike of the 47th US President. The debacle eventually culminated in Taylor Swift herself announcing her endorsement of Kamala Harris on Instagram.
Once Trump was elected, his tendency for smearing political opponents continued at the White House. Democrat Representative. Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles posted a tweet critical of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on strawberry fields in Ventura County, California. In July 2025 the official White House X account posted this edit in return, altering his expression using AI to depict him “crying” over the raid. The caption dubbed Gomez “Cryin’ Jimmy” and stated “That ain’t produce, holmes. THAT’S PRODUCT. ” insinuating that the strawberry fields were actually marijuana farms.
Since “Alligator Alcatraz”, an immigration detention facility built on an abandoned Florida airport was first announced, many human rights groups raised concerns about the facility. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a suit claiming detainees there were subject to human rights abuses and denied due process, while the American Immigration Council dubbed the project an “obscene human rights violation”. The response to this criticism was mockery; in June 2025, the official X account for the Department of Homeland Security posted this AI generated image of alligators in ICE caps in front of a cold, hard prison facility, making a joke of the concerns of activists, and playing on the name Alligator Alcatraz – so dubbed because if any inmates escaped, they would be surrounded with the alligator-infested Florida Everglades.
This AI-generated poster, posted by the White House on X, quotes an interview by JD Vance regarding the mass deportation of supposed illegal immigrants to El Salvador. Many deportations were likely unlawful as they were carried out without due process, giving those deported no chance to plead their case. The poster illustrates how the US Government is attempting to use viral trends to distract from illegal actions. Posted in April 2025 it depicts Vance and Trump as strongmen in the style of Japanese animation film company Studio Ghibli, who released films like Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. AI images in this style were viral at the time, and the White House wasted no time in co-opting the fad to spread their message.
Posted by the official X account of the US Department of Labor in August 2025, this AI-generated image harks back to mid-20th century agitprop from the likes of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Depicting a strong white male, this image was accompanied with the caption “We need YOU to help unleash the Golden Age of America”, alongside a link to the government’s apprenticeship programme. Deliberately stylised to look aged and slightly tattered, it is evident that the imagery used by last century’s European dictators is being co-opted.
