Let me tell you something. I run a tight ship at my house. Four kids, clear rules: no screens at dinner, no bullying, and if you make a mess, you clean it up. Apparently nobody told the White House.
Solen Feyissa / PexelsOn July 30, the official White House TikTok account, which is a thing that now exists, posted a video celebrating the number of people being deported from this country. The soundtrack? Bad Bunny’s “La Mudanza.” A song by a Puerto Rican artist who stood on the Grammy stage this year and said “ICE out” and called immigrants “humans and Americans.” They used his music to celebrate tearing families apart. I want you to sit with that for a second.
Flickr / PexelsA week later, Team Trump posted a clip with the text “mood because it’s August and Donald Trump is your president” set to Taylor Swift’s song “August.” The caption was pure playground taunt: “I’m sure Taylor Swift is going to be super excited we used her song.” Then they edited her Red album cover to joke that she wrote “a whole album about the color of the Republican party.” My nine-year-old pulls stunts like this when he wants attention, and he gets a time-out.
Here’s what I find interesting. Swift and Bad Bunny didn’t take the bait. They didn’t issue statements. They didn’t post angry threads. They just quietly had their songs pulled from the videos. No drama, no headlines, no oxygen for the fire. And that is exactly the right move, because the whole point of these clips is to provoke a reaction. The White House wants the screaming match. They want Olivia Rodrigo and Ariana Grande and Katy Perry to fire back so spokesperson Abigail Jackson can turn around and say things like “what’s actually barbaric, inhumane, and heinous are the criminal illegal aliens” and get that clip circulating too.