It seems that President Trump is ramping up his campaign to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and he’s enlisting the help of chronically online gamers to do it. In a post on Sunday, the White House social media account for the deporter in chief posted a baffling image of Trump holding an energy sword while donning Master Chief’s assault armor. In the AI-generated illustration, Trump is saluting a flag that only has 40 stars on it. The White House is in the background, also hosting a flag of its own, except this version of it has the currently demolished east wing intact.
“Power to the Players,” the post reads. It’s quoting a post from GameStop, which posted a “statement” declaring the console wars “over” in response to the reveal that Halo is coming to PlayStation in 2026:
Trump has asserted that he’s ended seven wars, which would make the console wars his eighth imaginary achievement. Trump also campaigned on waging less war than his predecessors. Somehow, this has resulted in renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War while also enacting an executive order that effectively wages war on many average Americans for having opposing views on his policies. Then there’s the whole inhumane war on immigration, which is currently ripping apart families and fueling protests across the nation.
The post has unsurprisingly sparked a surge in GameStop’s stock, which has sent the associated subreddit for the meme stock into a frenzy. The post on the White House’s antics had to be locked down, but not before people were salivating at the possibility that this could mean the start of a hugely profitable MOASS for anyone currently holding on to GameStop stock.
“Please, God, let me be on the green side of a Trump Pump for a change,” reads the top comment. Unfortunately, despite a reminder that the subreddit does not allow for partisan politics, a moderator had to step in and shut things down.
Since the White House post on Sunday and all the attention it’s garnered, the Department of Homeland Security has also posted a Halo-themed meme to encourage people to join ICE, the immigration-focused agency. It seems that, despite being gifted $170 billion in the big beautiful bill and continued paychecks throughout the government shutdown, ICE still doesn’t have the budget to pay an actual artist:
Notably, the government has undertaken a huge social media push during Trump’s second term. Earlier this year, ICE posted an awful video of chained immigrants set to Pokémon’s theme song. The New York Times reports that Vice President J.D. Vance has posted twice as much on social media as his contemporaries, like Kamala Harris. These posts are full of attempted gotchas, the occasional meme, and coarse language. It is reminiscent of Nayib Bukele’s social media strategy in El Salvador, which uses pop culture and internet jokes to obfuscate the public’s ability to seriously consider the implications of an apparent dictatorship. Trump has said that his son Barron Trump has helped advise him on how to better reach younger audiences through more modern means, like guesting on popular podcasts.
We could sit here and critique so much about this Halo post — for instance, did the console wars really start in the 2000s? — but it feels distasteful to countenance any of this, given everything else happening in the country right now.
