Last Sunday, President Trump posted an AI-generated meme of himself dressed in white and red robes, his hand appearing to hold a glowing orb, while healing a sick person in a hospital bed. Many interpreted the image as Trump depicting himself as Jesus and were deeply offended by what they perceived as religious blasphemy. Others defended the post as an innocent joke.
But Glenn Beck says all of these reactions are missing the bigger issue.
Citing a Washington post article that framed the meme as the cause of rare, strong backlash and blasphemy accusations from Trump’s evangelical and Catholic supporters, Glenn begins by calling out the outlet for politically capitalizing on a tasteless joke in order to rile up and divide Trump’s supporters.
“It’s not like Jesus is Muhammad. You can do whatever you want to Jesus in this country and nobody cares, it seems,” he says. “Since when did the Washington Post care about something that could be looked upon as blasphemy for Christians?”
“They only care because it’s political,” he argues.
Glenn explains that social media has become a powerful tool that enemies — domestic and foreign — use to push propaganda, stir up dissent, and manufacture outrage.
Research has just shown that foreign powers are doing this in America right now.
Glenn cites recent data showing that “60% of the most viral posts on X about Iran in the first weeks of the fighting came from accounts based outside of the US. Foreign accounts generated 155 million views compared to 93 million from real American viewers.”
“That’s not organic outrage, okay? That’s Iran. That’s Russia. That’s China flooding the zone with deepfakes, doctored images of sunken ships, scripted narratives designed to make us fight one another,” he argues.
These foreign powers “don’t care if you love Trump or hate Trump,” Glenn continues.
“They just need everybody at each other’s throats.”
The biggest issue with Trump’s Jesus meme, says Glenn, isn’t what it might or might not have conveyed; the biggest issue is that it served as fuel for the social media outrage machine that keeps us fighting one another, which is exactly what our enemies want.
“[Social media] is a .50-caliber machine gun aimed at your head and this civilization every single day. It’s a nuclear weapon,” he warns.
To hear more, watch the video above.
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