Norms Impact
Pop Star Tells White House ‘Perverts’ to Stop Using Her Song
The White House is turning official channels into a meme engine for war imagery—collapsing the boundary between public authority and propaganda-by-provocation.
Mar 3, 2026
Sources
Summary
The White House posted a TikTok video titled “Lethality” using Kesha’s song “Blow” over footage of military strikes and explosions. Senior communications officials defended the post as an attention strategy and said the administration will continue making “memes.” The episode normalizes federal communications that treat war imagery as promotional content and trains the public to accept governance through provocation rather than accountability.
Reality Check
When the executive branch uses official platforms to package military violence as entertainment and boasts that outrage is the point, it shifts federal communication from public explanation to public manipulation. That precedent degrades democratic oversight by training us to treat state power—especially coercive power—as content optimized for attention, not decisions justified to the people. Once that posture becomes routine, accountability mechanisms weaken: scrutiny is reframed as “engagement,” and governance is reduced to performative dominance rather than transparent, contestable policy.
Media
Detail
<p>On Feb. 10, the White House posted a 30-second TikTok video titled “Lethality” that used Kesha’s 2011 song “Blow” as audio over military imagery, including a jet launching a missile into a ship that explodes. The video received more than 1.9 million views.</p><p>On Monday, Kesha said she had been informed the White House used her song “to incite violence and threaten war” and stated she did not approve of her music being used “to promote violence of any kind.” She later posted on X: “Stop using my music, perverts @WhiteHouse.”</p><p>White House Communications Director Steven Cheung responded on social media that criticism “gives us more attention and more view counts.” The White House, contacted for comment, sent Cheung’s post as its response. Deputy Communications Director Kaelan Dorr said, “Memes? They’ll continue. Winning? Will also continue.” The White House did not comment on Kesha’s “perverts” post.</p>