Morgan Weistling, an accomplished painter from Cowboys and Old West Frontier Life, was on vacation with his family this month when he received a surprising message from a friend about one of his works of art.
The American Department of Internal Security, he said, the friend had told him, had published a work he had painted five years ago on his official social networks without his knowledge.
The painting, which resembles a scene from the Oregon path, represents a young white couple – in a long dress, he in a cowboy hat – cradling a baby in a covered wagon, mountains and another wagon in the background.
“Remember the heritage of your homeland”, the Ministry of Internal Security has legendary The message of July 14 On X, Instagram and Facebook.
Who is the homeland and who inheritance? And what was the planned message from the federal department, whose masked and strongly armed agents have arrested thousands of Hispanophone -speaking immigrants with brown skin – most with No criminal convictions – In California this summer?
This was the source of a stormy online debate at a time when the Trump administration increased its online lagging fishing with memes and jokes on the raids that criticisms qualified as racist, childish and unjustifying social media accounts.
The “Remember Your Homeland’s Heritage” position has accumulated 19 million views on X and thousands of responses. Critics compared the position to Nazi propaganda. The supporters said it was “ok to be white” and to celebrate “traditional values”.
Among the answers: “You mean the heritage built on stolen lands, an indigenous genocide and a white -white story?
And: “A few minutes later, an ice wagon stops next to them, the cuff agents and the pins at the back, then briefly refer them to Ireland.”
Another person, referring to the video game “Oregon Trail”, joked: “All three died of dysentery”.
Asked about post-criticism of the post, a spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Security said in an email in Times: “If the media need a history lesson on the courageous men and women who have opened the trails, we are happy to send them a history manual. This administration is without understanding of American history and American history.
The demonstrators confront federal agents during an immigration descent to Glass House Farms on July 10 in Camallo.
(Julie Leopo / for time)
On July 11, a federal judge temporarily arrested Blind immigration sweeps away immigration in southern California in places such as Home Depot, car washing and rows of street vendors. American district judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong said that she had found sufficient evidence that agents illegally used the race, ethnicity, language, accent, location or employment as a pretext for the application of immigration.
The following week, the Ministry of Homeland Security – which includes immigration and customs application as well as customs and border protection – displayed whites painting in the covered wagon. He also published a meme with A false poster From the 1982 film “and The Extra Terresrial” with the legend: “illegal aliens, take a page of and phone at home”.
Ramesh Srinivasan, founder of the Digital Cultures Laboratory at the University of California, which studies the links between technology, politics and culture, said that average messages and joyful deportation jokes are part of a deliberate trained fishing campaign by the Trump administration.
“The saddest part of all this is that he reflects how DHS acts in real life,” he said.
“Someone can be an online troll but may not be as much [of one] In real life, “he said.” The digital world and the physical world may not be completely in locking with each other. But in this particular case, there is a level of honesty which is really disturbing. »»
Srinivasan, who is an American Indian, said that although the paint of covered wagon is not offensive in itself, the calendar of the internal security post raises questions about the meaning of the government.
The table, he said, “is used to show inclusion and exclusion, which deserves to be American and which is not.”
Srinivasan said that the memes are effective because they quickly spread to a media environment in which people are flooded with information and quickly scroll in short video content with little context.
“There are hidden algorithms that determine visibility and virality,” said Srinivasan. “Indignation becomes more viral because it generates what technological companies call for engagement.”
Here in California, Governor Gavin Newsom has taken a page of Trump’s troll game book, with recent publications on social networks that include insults, swear words and, of course, memes.
Earlier this month, Newsom responded to an article on X by the far-right Libs of the Tiktok account which showed a video of someone apparently pump a pistol to immigration agents in Camillo. The account asked if the governor would condemn the shooting. Newsom wrote: “Of course, I condemn any assault against the application of the law, you show you shit. Now, do January 6.”
In an article on X, the Newsom press office called the Deputy Chief of the White House, Stephen Miller, the architect of many Trump immigration policies, a “”Fascist cuck. “Newsom defended the name A press conferenceSaying of the Trump administration: “I don’t think they understand another type of language.”
The deputy chief of the White House, Stephen Miller, talks to journalists outside the White House on May 9. Miller is the architect for most immigration policies in the Trump administration.
(SOMODEVILLA / GETTY Images)
The term is used in far -right circles to insult liberals as weak. He is also short for “COUCOLD”, the husband of an unfaithful woman.
Even for the Trump team, which is capable of distraction, increased online efforts to own the Libs, as the supporters say, come at a precarious moment for the president. He was involved in controversies on rumors on His friendship with The deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the effects of The so-called a big nice billthat Cut Medicaid and food aid programs when financing The hiring planned Thousands of new immigration agents.
However, his memes teams work hard to stir up indignation and boast immigration raids.
Earlier this month, Homeland Security published a smooth published video on his social media accounts showing border agents at work, with a narrator citing the Isaiah 6: 8 biblical verse: “So I heard the Lord’s voice say:” Who will I send? And who will go to us? “And I said,” Here I am. Send me. ” »»
The video uses a song cover, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” of the San Francisco Rock Band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
A Protestant man against immigration raids was walking before the Troops of the California National Guard, federalized by President Trump, while keeping a federal building in downtown Los Angeles on June 12.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
On Instagram, The group wrote: “It has come to our attention that the Ministry of Internal Security unduly uses our registration of” God’s Gonna Cut You Down “in your last propaganda video. It is obvious that you do not respect the rights of the copyright and the rights of the artists that you do not respect the rights of Habeas and the regular procedure, not to mention the separation of the Church and the State by the American Constitution.”
On July 10, the group asked the government to stop and refrain from using its recording and lower the video.
It added: “Oh, and go f— yourself.”
Friday evening, the video remained Posted on X With the song.
In recent days, the social media accounts of the White House and Interior Safety have shared memes which include: a coffee cup with the words “fire the deportation plans”; A Halterophilia skeleton Declaring: “My body is a machine that transforms the financing of ice into mass deportations;” And Alligators wearing ice caps Referring to the officially appointed alligators immigrants’ holder in Florida.
A Even shared last week He represented a poster outside the White House that said: “OMG, did the White House really publish this?” The legend: “Nowhere in the Constitution says that we cannot display memes of Banger.”
The White House Also shared The Homeland Security has covered post wagon.
In response to questions about online criticism that calls for racist articles, the White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson, asked a Times journalist in an email to “explain how the expulsion of illegal extraterrestrials is racist”.
She also declared in a press release: “We will not stop celebrating the many victories of the Trump administration via memes banger on social networks. Stay angry.”
Weistling, the artist involuntarily caught up in controversy, was apparently surprised not only by the publication of his painting and name, but also by the Ministry of Internal Security using an incorrect title for the work of art.
The government labeled the painting: “New life in a new land – Morgan Weistling”.
The real title of painting is “a prayer for a new life”. The prints are registered for sale on the website for the non -profit evangelical concentration on the family.
Weistling, a recorded republican who lives in the County of Los Angeles, could not be joined to comment.
Shortly after the government used its painting, he wrote on Son website: “Attention! I did not grant the permission of the DHS to use my painting in their recent publications on their official web platforms. They used a painting that I made 5 years ago and readjusted and published it without my permission. It is a violation of my copyright on painting. It was a surprise for me and I try to bring together how it goes. [sic] And what to do next.
Later, he shortened the declaration on his website and deleted messages on his Instagram and Facebook accounts saying that he had learned the message during his vacation and was amazed at the government “thought that they could randomly publish the painting of an artist without authorization” and re-strain.
The Ministry of Internal Security has not answered Times’ questions about copyright problems.
But a spokesman said that the publication of an incorrect title was “an honest error”.
