MAGA’s AI onslaught continues.
This weekend, doubling down on accusations that presidential contender Kamala Harris is a Marxist communist (she isn’t), former president Donald Trump took to Truth Social to boost a clearly AI-generated image of Harris donned in communist attire, Stalinesque mustache and all.
It wasn’t the first time that Trump has used AI to attack Harris. Last month, days after falsely accusing his rival of using AI to fake the appearance of large crowds greeting her at a campaign stop — and, in the process, arguing that a presidential candidate using AI to create fake images should warrant disqualification on “election interference” grounds — Trump posted an AI-drawn image of a red-clad Harris speaking to a herd of Soviet–like figures, a hammer-and-sickle flag waving overhead.
It is, however, the first time he’s boosted propaganda that makes his opponent look like the iconic Nintendo character Mario. Here we go!
The image was taken from a Substack post by a writer who works at the Gateway Pundit, a far-right digital publisher notorious for publishing stories promoting baseless allegations that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump (copious evidence, and many judges he appointed, have found those claims to be false.) Trump reposted the image and a link to the Substack post — which described Harris as a “rock-ribbed socialist” — without comment.
The image is ridiculous, of course. It doesn’t look at all real, and as netizens pointed out on social media, the fake Harris’ fictional stache moreso invokes the vibe of Nintendo’s beloved cartoon plumber than it does the feared Soviet dictator.
“The only thing this post makes me wanna do is vote for Kamala,” wrote one X user, “and then play Super Mario World on my old Super Nintendo system.”
“BREAKING,” added comedian Jason Selvig, “Donald Trump accuses Kamala Harris of being a heroic plumber who saved Princess Peach from Bowser and his evil Koopa army.”
Convincing or not, though, the image does highlight the reality that generative AI — particularly Elon Musk’s guardrail-free Grok model — is increasingly being used as an easy-bake propaganda oven. After all, not all image-based propaganda is expressly designed to look real. It’s often cartoonish and exaggerated by nature, and in this case, doesn’t exactly look like something intended to sway staunchly blue voters from Harris’ camp. Rather, this sort of propagandized image, while supporting a broader Trumpworld effort to portray Harris as a far-left extremist, reads much more like a deeply partisan appeal to the online MAGA base.
To wit, though many self-avowed Harris voters mocked the fake picture, the likes of right-wing X poster Phillip “Catturd” Buchanan latched onto it — as did his followers, who responded with quips about “Comrade Kamala” and, in several cases, AI-generated images of their own.
Trump wasn’t the only far-right figure to employ AI this weekend to further communist allegations against Harris. On Monday, in response to an X post from the Harris campaign that referenced Trump’s vow to be dictator on “day one” of his second term, X owner Musk used the platform he bought in 2022 to share his own AI image of Harris decked out in communist garb.
“Kamala vows to be a communist dictator on day one,” Musk sarcastically captioned the image. “Can you believe she wears that outfit!?” The post has yet to receive a Community Note indicating the use of AI, and is also lacking a fact-check to the false allegation that Harris has vowed to be a “communist dictator on day one” (she hasn’t.)
Musk’s clearly faked photo drew criticism from users across X, ranging from “Happy Days” actor Henry Winkler to former United Nations deputy secretary-general Jan Eliasson.
“Just straight up disinformation, with no parody label or community note, from the owner of this site and the guy with the most followers,” wrote Zeteo editor-in-chief and former MSNBC commentator Mehdi Hasan. “Anyone who claimed he wouldn’t use this platform to push rightwing conspiracies and help elect Trump must be feeling pretty dumb right now.”
The use of AI by Trump — not to mention his richest and most influential supporter — to further highly politicized attack lines reflects the ever-increasing surreality of the 2024 election, a political contest being battled out on the back of a nearly-ten-year stretch of chaos, fake news, and the endless whir of muddied social media information. It also certainly underscores a recent argument made by The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel, who observed that the “meme-loving” MAGA aesthetic and the hyperreal tone of AI slop are, in the murky annals of social platforms like X, increasingly merging together.
On that note, like Trump’s Truth Social-boosted Lenin-slash-Mario image, Musk’s X post drew some support in addition to derision.
“I can believe it,” wrote one X user in the billionaire’s comments. “Kammunism.”
More on Trump and AI: After Falsely Accusing Kamala Harris of Using AI, Donald Trump Posts AI Slop About Her on Twitter
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