Growing up in the 1970s, television taught me several irrefutable truths: drugs fried your brain, friends didn’t let friends drive drunk, and the federal government had a surprising amount of faith in my ability to prevent forest fires.
Yes, the ‘70s were the halcyon days of the public service announcement—those short, memorable, occasionally terrifying little messages designed to keep Americans from littering, smoking, drowning, drinking and driving, spreading venereal disease, or heaven forbid running around like a banshee if (when?) they found themselves on fire.
Related: I can’t be the only adult out here who can never find my car in the Costco parking lot without using my alarm but would absolutely know to stop, drop, and roll if I spontaneously combusted. I’m not going to lie, they really had me convinced that being a grown-up would involve a lot more being on fire.
PSAs never went away, of course. Over the decades the government has taken to the airwaves to urge citizens to keep America beautiful, just say no to drugs, quit smoking, get tested for AIDS, and—most recently—strap cloth petri dishes to our faces and inject ourselves with deadly, experimental bioweapons. But leave it to Donald Trump to take a lineup that includes CRACK ISN’T COOL and BUCKLE UP FOR SAFETY and jam LOVE YOUR COUNTRY in at the very top like it’s Mick Jagger on a Coachella poster.
The White House is currently airing a series of 30- to 60-second, taxpayer-funded television spots promoting patriotism, American exceptionalism, and the current administration’s accomplishments. The first in the series (and arguably the one that makes you wonder if you accidentally clicked on an ad for Trump: The Musical) features the Donald declaring that “America will never be a communist country,” followed by a rapid-fire montage of Trump images, boasts about tax cuts and American manufacturing, and the voice of UFC boss Dana White describing Trump as “the toughest, most resilient person” he’s ever met—all while a choir repeatedly sings Love me. If Lee Greenwood and the WWE had a baby and then gave it five Red Bulls and a production budget, it would look a lot like this 30-second spot.
Subtle, it is not. And that, more or less, is the controversy.
The administration insists it’s not a political ad because Trump isn’t even on the ballot and the spot doesn’t include any sort of call to action. According to the White House, it’s simply a reminder for Americans to love their country and know why it’s worth defending.
“Patriotism isn’t partisan,” the White House said of the broader promotional push. “These public service announcements are unapologetically American, clearly disclosed, and aimed at the country—not a line on the ballot.”
Critics are calling the whole thing propaganda: a taxpayer-funded, campaign-style tribute to a sitting president, airing before a midterm election on the networks most likely to reach Republican voters. Sen. Maggie Hassan dubbed the debut ad “another troubling example of President Trump’s growing list of expensive vanity projects” before demanding to know who approved it, what it cost, where the money came from, which agencies and contractors were involved, and what official purpose justified it.
Which, fine. Those are reasonable questions whenever Washington spends public money, especially on something involving a president’s face. But can we please retire the pretense that Donald Trump woke up one morning and invented Washington spending our money to convince us how wonderful Washington is?
Obama’s White House used a sprawling PR operation to push the Affordable Care Act—the legislative train wreck that would define his presidency. In 2014 alone, HHS-sponsored ads promoting Healthcare.gov included one estimated to have cost nearly $4 million and aired 3,094 times. Of course the ads directed people to enroll in insurance, but they also did something politically priceless: they gave Obamacare a taxpayer-funded makeover—less an unpopular, disruptive law and more a benevolent government safety net, gently tucking the vulnerable into bed while the mandate waited outside in the car.
That’s not informing the public; that’s what’s known in the industry as spin.
And frankly, the ACA ad blitz was nothing compared to what they unleashed during Covid. In 2020, HHS began a $265 million “public-education campaign” to peddle the official narrative—one that would eventually balloon to more than $900 million in spending. Every screen, speaker, celebrity, and social feed sang from the same hymnal: mask up, get vaccinated, get boosted, trust the “experts,” get boosted again, tattle on your neighbors, and treat questioning any of the above as flat-out domestic terrorism.
The Biden administration didn’t spend nearly a billion dollars on Covid advertising because it thought Americans had forgotten how soap worked. It wanted them to do things, believe things, and trust the people telling them which things to do and believe—which, inconveniently, is the entire point of advertising. I have no idea how many hours of airtime that kind of money buys, but I’m guessing it’s more than you need to say “wash your hands.”
Obviously, the government is allowed to advertise. The issue becomes where do you draw the line between public service and propaganda—and importantly, who gets to draw it?
Apparently the White House wanted to test those boundaries, because they went ahead and unleashed several more ads over the weekend. One features Trump at Mount Rushmore celebrating America’s 250th birthday and promising the beginning of a new “golden age.” Another recounts the capture of Nicolás Maduro. A third, ominously titled Final Battle, features black-and-white footage of Trump marching down a hallway promising to demolish the deep state, expel the warmongers, drive out the globalists, cast out the communists and Marxists and fascists, rout the fake-news media, and liberate America from the villains. You know, stop, drop, roll, and defeat the cabal. Basic PSA-type stuff.
The internet was not impressed. What had begun as typical hand-wringing over a particularly Trumpy video clip escalated into five-alarm accusations of full-blown banana-republic dictatorship. Fueling the outrage was a) the fact that Final Battle is actually a recycled Trump campaign ad, and b) the scandalous matter of the disclaimer that appears on all the spots: PAID FOR BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT.
Early coverage noted the tagline as evidence that the administration had at least clearly disclosed who was footing the bill. By the time the New York Times got hold of the story, the disclaimer itself was “striking.” Apparently the White House managed the rare feat of getting in trouble for both spending taxpayer money and admitting it.
The question currently torturing both sides of the aisle seems simple enough on the surface: is any of this actually illegal? Alas, we’re talking about a question that needs answering by the same governing body that designed the tax return. Yes, federal law prohibits taxpayer money from being spent on unauthorized “publicity or propaganda,” but the government is also perfectly entitled to explain and promote its own policies.
“The publicity or propaganda restriction prohibits the use of appropriated funds solely for partisan purposes,” the Government Accountability Office explicitly states. “Appropriated funds may never be used ‘in a general propaganda effort designed to aid a political party or candidates.’ However, the lines separating the nonpolitical from the political cannot be precisely drawn [emphasis mine].”
And to argue that the ads are being used for “partisan purposes” would require Democrats to admit—out loud—that LOVING AMERICA rightfully belongs to the right.
That, to me, is the interesting part. If Obama can spend millions convincing Americans his signature health-care program is good for us, and Biden can spend hundreds of millions more selling us on the idea that masking and vaccination are acts of responsible citizenship, I’m having trouble locating the bright legal line at America is awesome and communism sucks.
Whatever you think of the ads, there is something magnificently Trumpian about the whole exercise. Spend taxpayer money telling Americans to love America, wait for Democrats and the media to lose their minds over it, and watch loving America become the latest threat to democracy. Trump’s gonna troll.
Maybe the answer is clearer rules governing what any administration can buy with our money. Maybe it’s accepting that government messaging will always contain some amount of institutional self-promotion. Maybe it’s appointing a federal Department of Knowing Propaganda When We See It. Solving this one’s not my job. But I’m going to need something slightly more objective than “it became propaganda when the president I hate started doing it.”
In the meantime, kids, remember: stay off the crack, buckle your seat belts, and for the love of God, try to maintain federally recommended levels of patriotism.
POLL REDUX FOR FINICKY PHONES:
Trump’s LOVE AMERICA campaign is…
pure propaganda.
pure patriotism.
a little bit of both.
Wait, I paid for this?
*combo/unsure/other
You forgot the crying Indian and litter. 1971 ... "Keep America Beautiful".
Jenna, thanks for your insight. It is amazing that the left doesn't even seem to love America. Everything is doom and gloom. That is unless they're promoting their own version of doom and gloom packaged as a fight for democracy.
We ought (have) to be proud of our country since it's the greatest country ever. We need to stand up and defend it against the evil that is constantly nipping at its heels (and so often takes a bite!). God bless America and God bless President Trump. 🇺🇸 🦅 🕊️