For the first time in 40 years, the U.S. men’s hockey team is at the top of the world.
At the 2026 Winter Olympics, the American men faced a series of challenges culminating in a 2-1 overtime win against Canada to capture the gold. It was the first time since the 1980 Miracle on Ice the U.S. had taken gold.
That 1980 contest wasn’t only about hockey; it was about politics, patriotism and the American way. The Olympics were designed to engender nationalistic fervor, and the scrappy college-aged Americans taking down the four-time defending gold-medal winning Soviets in the semi-finals in New York became a political, ideological victory as powerful as the moon landing.
It’s not a surprise, then, that the White House immediately attempted to frame the 2026 victory over Canada in the same light. The men partied with FBI Director Kash Patel and took a congratulatory phone call from President Donald Trump. Conservative media fawned over brothers Quinn Hughes and Jack Hughes, whose performances and patriotic interviews provided a contrast to American skier Hunter Hess’s anti-ICE comments. The entire team was featured during the State of the Union address, where they entered to chants of “USA” and a 2-minute standing ovation.
To top off this ode to American dominance, the official White House TikTok posted a video montage featuring Team USA hockey player Brady Tkachuk sitting at a press conference saying, “They booed our National Anthem, so I had to come out and teach those maple syrup eating f**ks a lesson.”
This wasn’t just about hockey. It was about American exceptionalism. It was a political statement.
One thing, though. It wasn’t real.
Tkachuk — who lives in Canada and plays for an NHL team in Canada’s capital city — never said that. The White House used AI deepfake technology to alter video footage from a 2025 interview to put those words in Tkachuk’s mouth.
Tkachuk has rightfully called it out: “It’s not my voice. It’s not what I was saying. I would never say that. That’s not who I am.”
The White House, however, has refused comment.
Connor Hellebuyck of Team United States gets the Gold Medal after the Men`s Ice Hockey final match between USA and Canada on day sixteen of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena on February 22, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by EyesWideOpen/Getty Images)
From slapshots to shitposts
Mike Johnson
This type of internet trolling and use of AI-generated or edited images and videos has become a key political tool for the second Trump administration. House Speaker Mike Johnson has defended Trump’s AI usage by saying: “The president uses social media to make the point. You can argue he’s probably the most effective person who’s ever used social media for that.”
The “points” Trump has made are far-reaching. He’s been a king, the pope, a jacked Jedi and Superman.
These videos are obviously fake. We all know Donald Trump isn’t a Jedi or a fighter pilot. The images and videos are often cartoonish, not intended to reflect reality. I mean, who among us hasn’t used AI to turn photos of ourselves into action figures, Studio Ghibli characters or a muppet?
Generative AI allows freely and instantly the type of content you used to have to pay $20 to get from a caricature artist at a theme park. There are privacy and ethical concerns, to be sure, but there’s something lighthearted and unifying about seeing your Facebook feed filled with all your friends doing the same goofy trend. It feels harmless.
Trump’s use of memes positions the president as a man of the people. To quote White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, “He likes to share memes, he likes to share videos, he likes to repost things that he sees other people post.”
But Trump’s use of generative AI is anything but unifying or lighthearted. Trump and his regime don’t only use generative AI because it’s quick, easy, popular and compelling. They use it to intentionally provoke and offend.
The Guardian published this side-by-side comparison of the origiunal image of a woman arrested and the version posted by the White House.
To use the technical term in the internet vernacular, Trump and company have become experts in “shitposting.” When the White House jumped on the Studio Ghibli trend in March 2025, they dredged up a week-old news image of a woman weeping while being handcuffed by an ICE officer. There’s no news value, no novelty, nothing except capitalizing on internet virality to purposefully offend.
Even the images that might seem benign get cast in a different light based on Trump’s position and power. If I asked ChatGPT to generate an image of me wearing a crown and calling me a king, it wouldn’t mean much. When the president of the United States does it, it’s a totally different matter. Now, the image has political implications.
Trump has since posted AI-generated video of him flinging feces on peaceful protesters and forcing Democratic leaders to kneel before him. He’s envisioned Barack Obama in handcuffs, Nancy Pelosi admitting to insider trading, and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie as sumo wrestlers.
Ranging from overtly cartoonish to the manipulatively realistic, the Trump administration is using generative AI for mockery, humiliation and political propaganda.
From shitposts to slopaganda
This use of generative AI for political propaganda is something researchers Michal Klincewicz, Mark Alfano and Amir Fard call “slopaganda.” A portmanteau of “slop” — an internet term for AI-generated material — and “propaganda,” they define “slopaganda”as “AI-generated content that is spread in order to manipulate beliefs to achieve political ends.”
Individuals viewing a video of Barack Obama being handcuffed and arrested might be able to easily tell that it is not a real image, but simply being exposed to it increases its perceived truthfulness. Just like viewing and sharing racist memes — even to condemn them — can normalize their antagonisms, viewing and sharing slopaganda makes it begin to feel truthful, even though we cognitively know it isn’t.
“When the Trump administration shares these images of a distorted reality, they are communicating the kind of reality they would like to see.”
When the Trump administration shares these images of a distorted reality, they are communicating the kind of reality they would like to see.
This slopaganda is perhaps most clearly seen in the Department of Homeland Security’s social media presence. Their feeds are filled with AI-generated or edited imagery related to ICE recruitment and deportations. Some of the most egregious examples include a recruitment poster captioned “Which way, American man?” an oblique reference to an influential white supremacist book. Other posts adapt imagery from pop culture media like Halo and Pokemon. Another recruitment image evokes an action-movie style poster, subtly placing ICE agents in the position of action heroes.
When Wired asked DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin to comment on the use of these images, she replied, “What a silly little story. … We won’t apologize for posting banger memes.”
By hiding under the cover of memes and shitposting, the Trump administration is protesting that “it’s just a joke, bro” and obfuscating the very serious way generative AI can affect our reality. These aren’t just memes; they’re a worldview condensed in memetic form purposefully playing on emotional, relational and pop culture connections to make their propaganda more palatable.
From slopaganda to fabricated reality
For all the problems of AI-generated and edited imagery the Trump administration has produced, the one saving grace had been that they were — mostly — obviously the product of artificial intelligence. The goal never seemed to be to rewrite reality or pass off something AI-generated as true. That changed with Tkachuk’s video, however.
Even though the White House’s TikTok video contains the label “AI-generated imagery,” it’s not at all clear in the montage what elements it is referring to. It feels perfectly natural, based on context, to assume Tkachuk’s interview represented reality. There’s some plausible deniability that was not the administration’s intention, but the White House appears to have altered video footage to skew viewers’ perceptions of the truth.
The White House is moving from shitposting to slopaganda to flat-out fabrications of reality.
Tkachuk isn’t the only example. In January, the White House X account posted an altered image of Minneapolis civil rights lawyer Nekima Levy Armstrong being arrested, exaggerating her facial features and darkening her skin tone. Political memes and messaging always have misrepresented reality through satirical exaggeration or biased opinion, but generative AI technology is collapsing the distinction between exaggeration and fabrication.
When the government produces synthetically falsified versions of real events, it destroys our ability to trust any form of media.
This is precisely what the Trump administration wants. Deepfakes not only deceive the folks who believe them, they erode trust in every other form of visual media. Trump already is on record saying “That’s probably AI” to a video previously confirmed as real by his press team. He then mused, “If something happens that’s really bad, maybe I’ll have to just blame AI.”
Generative AI media doesn’t just create a false reality; it makes actual reality more difficult to ascertain. And remember this is the president who has built his career on telling his followers mainstream media is “fake news.”
Generative AI images and video allow those in power to control our perception of reality. Today, AI can be used to fabricate a reality where a U.S. hockey player insults Canadians.
Where might it go from here? Orwell wrote: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
What Orwell could not envision was a Party who wants you to accept the evidence because they have presented a false reality. What in Orwell’s day required elaborate propaganda system now only requires a decently crafted prompt.
The danger is not simple misinformation, but the quickened erosion of an already failing shared reality that is required for society to function.
Donald Trump has spent more than a decade screaming “FAKE NEWS” in an attempt to dismiss any reality he deems unpleasant. Generative AI technology has given him and his regime the ability to at least begin to manufacture a reality of their own.
Josh Olds is a public theologian and pastor for those disillusioned with institutional church. He is the creator of the small-group video series “Year on the Mountaintop” and a featured contributor to Fostering Hope: A Prayerbook for Fostering and Adoptive Parents. Follow his work on Facebook or at JoshOlds.com.
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