With AI memes, Trump promotes mythical version of himself as challenges stack up ahead of midterms

President Donald Trump and the White House released a torrent of AI-generated memes over Labor Day weekend portraying him as a superhero, a hockey star, and a military commander, even as polls show most U.S. adults disapprove of his handling of the economy and the Iran war. Republican strategist Kevin Madden said the memes may energize Trump's base but will not win over the affordability voters who will decide the midterms.

Getting your Trinity Audio //trinityaudio.ai player ready... By JOSH BOAK WASHINGTON AP — In the real world, President Donald Trump https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump is struggling to stop inflation, rout the Iranian government and restore American manufacturing with tariffs. However, it’s a different story in the fantastical vision that he shares with supporters on social media. Over Labor Day weekend, Trump and the White House unleashed an extraordinarily heavy torrent of memes that portrayed the president as singularly powerful. One video depicted Trump as a superhero wielding Green Lantern’s ring to effortlessly build a wall to keep out migrants and erect a slew of busy factories. Another post showed him in a U.S. hockey uniform looming over Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as Carney cowered on the ice. And another had Trump on a military ship as it bombarded an enemy fleet. Trump’s allure has always relied on a mythical version of himself, from “The Apprentice” to the White House, but the gap between meme and reality has become glaringly stark ahead of the midterm elections. https://apnews.com/article/trump-midterms-iran-tariffs-data-centers-f07499f53269e37ccd2565564cc01e4e Most U.S. adults are unhappy with Trump’s handling of the economy https://apnews.com/article/trump-approval-iran-economy-cost-of-living-poll-fff492898cc8ff34e11df90ec4837a79 and say the Iran war hasn’t been worth it https://apnews.com/article/trump-approval-iran-war-poll-republicans-election-55e9c80afec521d87f131393a59674c0 , but Trump has responded with outlandish images of himself as unstoppable and omnipotent. Memes risk sidestepping reality Some of the pictures are generated with artificial intelligence, and the administration has previously defended the memes as funny and their critics as humorless. Yet the stakes right now are serious for congressional Republicans who have tied their own fate to a president with low approval numbers. Trump’s party will put him center stage https://apnews.com/article/trump-midterm-convention-dallas-republicans-abf83481a5add5a3b16977b3ceb87feb at an unusual midterm convention on Wednesday and Thursday in Dallas in hopes of stoking voters’ enthusiasm. Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist, said that Trump’s social media posts can energize his base of “Make America Great Again” followers, although the tradeoff is that he’s not talking about how to fix inflation. The voters who are likely to determine control of Congress in the midterms “are not going to be won over with memes,” Madden said. “The affordability voter is driving this election cycle and the issues they care about are anchored in the economy.” The White House press office did not respond to a request for comment. Trump sometimes plucks memes from a sprawling ecosystem of online conservative supporters, and sometimes his government staff produces them as part of their official messaging. Recently they created a series of old-school video games https://apnews.com/article/trump-white-house-video-game-arcade-d540ff089ed5b1d432715a4209b16a23 , such as a “Tetris” knockoff called “Build the Wall.” “The memes will continue,” Kaelan Dorr, a member of the White House communications team, recently posted on social media. “The winning will continue.” Aging presidents promote vitality online The problem for Trump is that voters have other images they’re using to define him. Drivers can spot through their windshields that gasoline is averaging $4.15 a gallon, up nearly 30% from a year ago because of the Iran war. And social media is inundated with questions about the 80-year-old president’s health and vitality, spurred by pictures of his bruised hands or video clips of him appearing to fall asleep https://apnews.com/article/trump-cabinet-doodle-misspelling-eyes-closed-84df52bbc901a001e98e325155224954 in meetings. White House officials have said the bruising is caused by “frequent handshaking” https://apnews.com/article/trump-swelling-legs-chronic-venous-insufficiency-health-40beb3c818cfb914645db9d1f143fdd8 and Trump’s aspirin regimen, and they’ve denied that he’s dozed off. Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, is three years older and faced relentless scrutiny about his age while in office. His White House came to embrace a meme version of Biden with lasers for eyes, suggesting that he was powerful and focused rather than infirm. Andrew Bates, who was a deputy press secretary for Biden, said that Trump’s memes seem to be about avoiding the actual responsibilities of governing. He said they risk angering voters who see Trump as more focused on redecorating the White House than bringing the Iran war to a successful end. “When a president who ran on bringing gas prices under $2 a gallon is now saying, ‘You’re at four dollars, it’s OK,’ it unfortunately makes sense that he’s also posting fever dreams,” Bates said. Some memes have caused trouble The memes have occasionally gotten Trump into trouble. He posted an image of himself as Jesus in April, which caused a degree of consternation among some supporters. The president later claimed https://apnews.com/article/trump-pope-leo-xiv-02f6b4554ea4b83af02af15987ae1f2d he thought the image showed him as a medical doctor — albeit a doctor in Biblical robes with light emanating from his hands. In February, his account posted a racist video https://apnews.com/article/trump-obama-racist-video-a48a6b8884a88f9ec30cd4913e352b51 of former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as primates, which he deleted after a backlash. Last October, Trump shared a video of him in a fighter jet dumping feces on Americans who were protesting his policies. What the memes have not done so far is boost his wider approval ratings. Only 33% of U.S. adults approve of how he is handling the job of being president, according to a July AP-NORC poll. But the polling also hits at a reason why he might be sending the memes to rally his core supporters. Just 15% of U.S. adults strongly approve of his presidency, the poll found, a slight decline from 22% shortly after he took office.