Official executive agency social media accounts have been posting hateful content since Donald Trump took office again last year, but two memes shared last week drew particular attention.
First, the White House posted “Patriot Guidelines” on Wednesday, presenting the correct and incorrect ways to think and be in a series of side-by-side images arranged to look like an infographic. One of them showed a white man wearing a MAGA cap with a green checkmark next to a woman wearing a sombrero with a red “X.”
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The last two panels showed three women of different races receiving awards for a sporting competition with a green check mark, while the red “X” counterpart showed a white, blond cis man receiving first place, with no one receiving third place, likely an AI error.
The image is a reference to the myth that anyone in the U.S. political landscape supports “men in women’s sports,” something that many Republicans – including Trump – complain about constantly. In reality, many people support trans people being allowed to participate in sports as their gender, but no major party wants to force sports organizations to allow men to compete in women’s sports.
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Several other federal departments posted memes of their own in the same format, with some not really understanding how the meme works. Another notable example came from the Department of Education (ED).
ED posted a meme in response, showing a red X on a picture of a building labeled “U.S. Department of Education,” likely because the Trump administration wants to eliminate the department.
The second set of panels includes a red X above a picture of a drag queen reading to children, and the third set is another reference to sports, showing three women of different races running in a bizarre level of reality where they are simultaneously running in three separate lanes but jumping over just two hurdles that don’t cross into other lanes. The red X appears above an image of a cis man running against a woman, which, again, is a strawperson argument.
Many people on the left mocked the memes online, while others on the right complained that the memes included people of color at all on the green checkmark side.
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