
The intolerable memes of Alligator Alcatraz
To them, the whole thing is a big joke, fodder for memes that activate the base even as they turn the majority of Americans off from Trump's draconian immigration enforcement.
One Republican member of Congress is also selling Alligator Alcatraz merch
Laura Loomer, a close confidante of Trump's, was giddy at the prospect of potential escapees dying in the act. 'The good news is, alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we start now,' she posted on X. (The figure refers not to the estimated number of undocumented immigrants in the country but to the United States' entire Latino population.) Conservative commentator Benny Johnson compared the facility's entrance to Jurassic Park and bragged about getting official Alligator Alcatraz merch during his visit. (Before his rightward turn, and before he was fired from BuzzFeed for plagiarism, Johnson also compared the Arab Spring to Jurassic Park. It's unclear if he's seen any other movies.) One Republican member of Congress is also selling Alligator Alcatraz merch to fund her reelection campaign. There's more merch on Etsy. Obviously, there's also a shitcoin.
The memes and merch are more than a get-rich-quick scheme for enterprising nativists, though grift is obviously always part of the MAGA equation. In his second term, Trump has turned immigration enforcement into a spectator sport. Far-right influencers like Chaya Raichik, better known as Libs of TikTok, have been invited to ride-alongs with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has turned her position into a sort of cowboy cop cosplay, often appearing in public in a bulletproof vest or a ten-gallon hat (or sometimes both). The official White House X account is posting 'deportation ASMR' and Studio Ghibli-fied images of crying migrants in handcuffs.
There's a real glee to it. To borrow from Adam Serwer, the cruelty is the point, but there's more to it than that. At this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, Vice President JD Vance said that voters had given Trump a mandate on immigration enforcement; Trump won the popular vote in part because the public was clamoring for mass deportations. It's true that before the 2024 election, most voters expressed disapproval with President Joe Biden's border policy and seemed open to a more hardline approach to immigration. But Trump — and the zoomers presumably running the White House's social media — either haven't realized that public opinion is no longer on his side with regard to immigration, or they simply don't care.
Trump seems even less beholden to public opinion in his second term than he was in his first. Since January, he has pursued deeply unpopular policies, from tariffs to completely gutting the federal government, so relentlessly that he has even lost support from his own base. Half a year into Trump's second term, it's clear that voters agreed with some of his proposals in abstract terms — they elected him because he promised to 'do something about immigration' and 'run the government like a business' — but don't like how these policies have played out in practice.
A chunk of Republican voters have turned against tariffs and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. Still other Trump supporters have seen their friends, relatives, and spouses targeted by ICE since the president's return to office. One naturalized citizen who voted for Trump was even stopped by ICE agents while driving to work; he now believes that ICE is racially profiling Latinos. He told a local news station that he voted for Trump because he would be targeting 'criminals, not every Hispanic, Spanish-look-alike.' Trump's approval rating on immigration is now down to 41 percent, the lowest since his second term began. Voters may have trusted Trump to get 'criminals' out of the country, but they weren't necessarily expecting his administration to indiscriminately target noncitizens (and some citizens as well), deploy the National Guard to arrest immigrants and crack down on protesters in Los Angeles, or disappear hundreds of people to a Salvadoran megaprison.
In a post on X, White House adviser Stephen Miller justified the decision to sic the National Guard on protesters by saying that 'America voted for mass deportations.' Recent polling suggests that Americans are no longer on board with Trump's immigration agenda. Rather than responding to this shift in voters' sentiment, the administration appears to be doubling down on its all-or-nothing approach to immigration enforcement and to its gleeful depictions of these draconian policies online. The memes create a sort of alternate reality, a virtual universe in which everyone is still on the Trump Train and all Americans are thrilled at the prospect of feeding immigrants to alligators. This echo chamber benefits from — and is amplified by — algorithmic silos. Your average voter may read about Alligator Alcatraz in the news, but they aren't necessarily seeing Benny Johnson's concentration camp selfies. The memes are in-group signaling; they engender a sense of belonging for Trump's most ardent supporters while inuring them to the cruelty of this new era. The memes are politics disjointed from polls and demagoguery free of democracy, a sign that the White House — either out of recklessness or something much worse — does not care about elections.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a few seconds ago
- Yahoo
Maxwell is talking 'about everybody' in meetings with the deputy attorney general.
Revelations could be near at hand in the Jeffrey Epstein saga as Ghislaine Maxwell has been granted limited immunity to speak freely in her meetings with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Blanche traveled to the Tallahassee, Florida, prison where the convicted accomplice of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is serving a 20-year sentence, for a nine-hour interview over two days. ABC News first reported on the limited immunity, meaning Maxwell can disclose information without criminally implicating herself. 'She answered questions about everybody,' attorney David Oscar Markus told reporters on Friday evening. The meetings were reportedly initiated by Maxwell herself.


CNN
2 minutes ago
- CNN
Source: Maxwell Granted Limited Immunity To Talk With DOJ - The Source with Kaitlan Collins - Podcast on CNN Podcasts
Source: Maxwell Granted Limited Immunity To Talk With DOJ The Source with Kaitlan Collins 49 mins President Trump says he wasn't told he was in the Epstein files days after White House officials confirmed he was. Plus, we just learned that convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has been given limited immunity.


CBS News
2 minutes ago
- CBS News
Real ID applications in Minnesota taking over 3 months to process, state says
The highly publicized Real ID deadline has passed, but the system is stuck in Minnesota, and for thousands of residents, the wait is far from over. A spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Department of Driver and Vehicle Services, said they continue to receive a high volume of REAL ID applications, and the reason for the backlog is that there are too many applications and not enough staff. In April, more than 100,000 applications were submitted, with 76,000 more in May. Only 24 workers statewide are processing the documents. Right now, the processing time is more than 90 days. "If this is the direction they are going for IDs, just going forward, they need to kind of get the process down a little faster," said Mariah Scarle. Scarle applied two months ago and is still empty-handed. For Chey Eisenman, the wait has gone from inconvenient to nearly impossible. Eisenman runs a limousine business and often drives clients to and from the airport. She's now more than 100 days into waiting for her Real ID. The delay has been so long that her temporary paper license is now expired. "If it takes much longer, I may go in and do a standard driver's license renewal," Eisenman said. Real ID remains a federal requirement to fly and access secure buildings. Anyone without a Real ID or passport could face extra security checks before their next flight. State officials say they are looking at ways to ease the backlog, and want to remind people the Real ID process takes longer than a standard ID because of added security standards.