This is One Thing, I'm David Rind, and just because it looks like a joke doesn't mean it is one.

'It is very much meme-cultury, right? It's like AI images and the use of memes, but it is backed up with serious state power.

Stick around.

When I saw the AI video of Trump and the Navy jet dumping sewage or feces or whatever was supposed to be on Americans who were protesting, I had to stop and my daughter was right there and I said, hey, you have to see this. This is the most outrageous thing I've ever seen. I couldn't believe it.

'Steve Heimler is describing something that really happened. The President of the United States really did post an AI-generated video over the weekend, which showed him wearing a crown, flying a fighter jet, dumping bra sewage on no-Kings protesters.

It definitely feels like there's a level of decorum that we've simply stripped away and now the gloves are off and it feels a little concerning, frankly.

Steve understands the broader context here because he's a history teacher.

'Oh hey AP students, my name is Steve Heimler. When I was in high school, I really struggled to get good grades. In fact, you-

He used to teach in high schools, he now does AP History test prep on YouTube. His Heimler's History channel has over a million subscribers.

'Alright, let's talk about Gery and what he's been mandering about. That's right, my young peoples, this video is all about internal boundaries and how they affect voting outcomes in democratic countries. So if you're ready to get them-

And Steve has taken note of all the trolling online and off the Trump administration has done this year.

They rollin', they hatin'

Take, for example, a video posted by ICE of what appears to be a handcuffed protestor in Portland being wheeled away on a flatbed cart. The caption, Portland refuse to walk. We'll give you a ride for Valentine's day. The White House posted roses are red. Violets are blue. Come here illegally and we'll deport you.

Look, guys, there's no way to sugarcoat it. Nobody likes Democrats anymore. We have no voters left because of all of our woke trans bulls**t. Not even black people want to vote for us anymore.

'Before the government shut down, Trump posted this video of an AI-generated Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer standing next to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who was sporting a bushy mustache and a sombrero. Vice President J.D. Vance called the racist deepfake a funny joke. Trump set up a series of framed images of past presidents outside the White House Rose Garden, a presidential walk of fame, and instead of President Joe Biden's face, they put a picture of his auto pen signature. The Huffington Post recently asked the White house whose idea it was to have President Trump meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest for a potential summit, and the Whitehouse press secretary responded, "'Your mom did.'" That is an incomplete list. But as these posts become increasingly nasty, I wanted to ask a teacher like Steve, who makes his living from the internet and understands that this is how his students consume nearly all of their news and current events, if he's gonna change his approach going forward.

'You know, I make, right now I'm making videos on US history for the AP US history course. And they're very much curriculum videos. I'm not, you know, going outside the scope of the curriculum. I'm just helping students study for their exams and get A's in their class. I wanna make sure that I'm telling the story in such a way that it complicates any simple narratives. And that's what historical thinking is. Would I rather a 16-year-old read a 5,000-word essay that I wrote on a topic? Absolutely, I would much rather do that because-.

Good luck, Steve, good luck.

Yeah, I know, I right? But if that's the way we're gonna continue to digest, the younger generation is gonna continue to digest public discourse. Then I think it's up to people, maybe it's up to the people like me, who think about language and media and how it affects the human mind and public discourse to say directly, guys, we have to think about these things. And that's what I've been trying to do, but it's an uphill battle and it's a long, long game.

It is something pretty unusual for the presidency. I mean, we've had crass presidents before, but this kind of performative, almost rat boy trolling behavior is not something that has been a big part of the office in the modern presidency.

'Nicole Hemmer is an associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University. She specializes in conservatism and the presidency. She also co-hosts the podcast This Day. And I wanted to talk to her to get a sense of how the Trump administration's trolling fits within the history of the presidency and where this all goes from here. And she says this kind of behavior is not exclusive to the political right.

'I'm thinking in this case of the yippies who were this group who organized in the late 1960s and in 1968, they ran for president, their candidate who was Pegasus, who was a pig and that's-

A pig. A real pig?

'A pig, a real pig, who was running for president. Obviously it was meant to make fun of the political system and to make of the people who run for president, but I think it actually was, especially in that period, more sort of the style of left-wing activism, right, to try to take some of the shine off of the establishment because it was the left that was anti-establishment in that time period.

Quote, look at that face, would anyone vote for that? Donald Trump saying that and saying more about his Republican rival, Carly Fiorina.

And so I think part of it has to be put down to Donald Trump.

She's not a smart person, she's a low IQ individual, she is.

And his own personal sort of crassness and his delight in making fun of his enemies. It has been a part of his public persona, certainly since he started running for president in 2015.

Written by a nice reporter, now the poor guy, you gotta see this guy. Oh, I don't know what I said, ah, I DON'T REMEMBER!

'And part of it is where we are culturally. This is something that has always had a bit of an effect on the presidency, is culture changes so too does the way that presidents act. And in this case- It's like a push and pull. Yeah, and the rise of trolling culture, other presidents have resisted it. And I think other people in that role probably wouldn't have given into it so much, but he delights in it. He's a very online president and this is part of being very online.

'When does this tip over from being rude or childish into something more than that? I'm thinking about that political report from last week, which revealed a series of vile, anti-Semitic, violent messages shared by prominent members of young Republican groups. The National Young Republicans Organization strongly denounced the messages, and in the aftermath, some involved reported they'd lost their job, some apologized. But it does say a lot that officials within this party apparatus would be willing to talk like that amongst themselves on a platform which, as we've seen, was definitely not secure.

'I would say that it tips over in two ways. One, part of this complete dehumanization of the political opposition does open the door for that kind of far-right and sometimes violent attacks that we've seen in politics in recent years. But I also think, especially when it's coming from the White House, it's important to understand it as part of this broader attack on civil liberties, on free speech and free assembly, and the broader authoritarian power grab of the Trump administration. It's about that dehumanization, it's about discrediting any sort of protest, and it's saying that the normal rules don't apply.

And it's not just the White House too, right? Because it's every federal agency has adopted this throughout their social media presence as well.

'Yeah, if you look at the messaging from the Department of Homeland Security or from ICE, it is very much meme-cultury, right? It's like AI images and the use of memes, but it is backed up with serious state power. And that matters, right. The messages that they're sending are often overtly racist, overtly violent, and they kind of play in that trolling space. But there are armed agents of the state behind it.

I guess I'm wondering if this is just, I'm kind of adopting the language that younger folks and people who spend a lot of time online use, or is the coarseness and the meanness the point, or are the two linked together?

The two are absolutely linked together because it, that sort of language and messaging that is beyond course, right, like it's, it's mean, um, and it glories in being mean. This was the idea behind Adam Surer's, the cruelty is the point essay, which is like, it's not an accident. It's not just messaging. It is part of the way that they understand power, that power gives them the opportunity to be mean to their enemies. And when you're mean to your enemies as the president of the United States, you're actually using state power to be mean to them. And so I think sometimes it actually gets mischaracterized as simply like trying to speak to his base or trying to to speak to like the bro culture or to groups online. But it's much more than that, right? It is a manifestation or a sign of the administration's willingness to be brutal to the people who they disagree with.

Gotta take a quick break, but I'll have more with Nicole Hammer in just a bit. Stick around. I guess I'm wondering about how the left is dealing with this moment, too, because we've seen California Governor Gavin Newsom kind of revamp his social messaging to kind of mimic Trump's true social account, the all caps, the thank you for your attention to this matter. And you can look even further back to, you know, Hillary Clinton basket of deplorables, President Biden kind of stepping in it. But I guess those were more gaffes than a concerted strategy. So Like is this something the left wants to engage in in a way that is maybe less mean? Like how did, how did they see this moment?

That is the debate that is happening on the left right now. I think something like Clinton's basket of deplorable statement. First of all, I think she was saying something different than how most people remember it. But even setting that aside, she apologized for it. And that is a big difference, right? It wasn't a strategy for her.

We put a mirror up to Trump and the absurdity of what's going on in this country, the absurd of Donald Trump.

Gavin Newsom I think is really interesting because on the one hand part of what Newsom is doing is He's ridiculing Trump by mimicking him a way of kind of taking the air out of Trump's way of talking to make it seem less serious

'Your countries are going to hell. The wind doesn't blow, those big windmills are so pathetic and so bad. The best-selling hat, Gavin Newsom, was right about everything.

And I think on that level sometimes it works pretty well.

Gavin, he's got some strange hand action going on, I don't know what the hell's his problem with it. Oh my.

I'm not sure that there is as much a hunger among Democrats to have someone who's performatively cruel as their representative. They might like having Gavin Newsom there throwing some punches online. I'm sure that that translates over into and now we want him to be our presidential candidate. That's going to be, I mean, that's going to be the test in 2028 if he decides to run. But my sense is there's still a kind of wall for Democrats between that kind of performative online meanness. And who they want to be running the country.

So game this out for me, if that strategy is still working and resonating on the right with the base, does it change how, you know, voters interact with politicians and vice versa going forward?

I think it does. I mean if politics becomes, if politics has become very base, it does a number of things. First, I think, it demystifies or takes some of the shine off of those people in office, right? Because they, I mean, that's part of what the reason Trump does it, right. It has this kind of populist appeal. It's the reason Andrew Jackson did it.

I'm just a guy on social media replying to random people or reposting just like you do.

I'm just a bro, I'm a dude, which is a wild thing for a president to say. It's objectively not true, but it is something that people find appealing. It is maybe the reductionist end of the guy you want to have a beer with. But even that said, it's alienating to a lot of people. So I'm not sure how, going forward, broad a base a person other than Donald Trump can build on being that. Performatively cruel, I could be wrong. JD Vance seems to be leaning into that as he begins to eye running her office. So I think it does change how people perceive presidents, but I don't think the right is going to back away from it because it gets them so much attention and it excites their base so much.

'Yeah, this perception of the presidency is really interesting to me, because when I was growing up, politics was presented as this very button-up affair, full of pomp and circumstance. It had this general air of politeness, even if there was these political differences and these, you know, these barbs you would hear, but it was always very stately. And like you say now, you see JD Vance, he's like literally replying to random Twitter users or Trump dropping F-bombs during meetings with Ukrainian president the other day, so I guess as an educator and historian like yourself, how are teachers preparing kids for this world and the way that politics is now?

It's a great question, I mean, first of all, teaching them that it's a change feels important because they don't remember the days of somebody like George H.W. Bush who wouldn't go on Larry King Live because he felt like it was beneath the dignity of the president to be on a live show. But it's also a story of, again, like a kind of cultural laxness that has taken place over a period of years. So Richard Nixon goes on a sketch comedy show when he's running for president. Jimmy Carter gives an interview with. There's a kind of loosening that begins to happen in the 70s and 80s and 90s. But it still remains, I would say up until Donald Trump, a position in which you wanted to present yourself as kind of buttoned up. There's whole mini scandal when Barack Obama was president because he put his feet on the resolute desk in the White House. But part of it too, I think, is just focusing on moral imagination that that I think even educators of younger students are really focused on which is to say like How do you want to treat people? How do want to be treated? It's very golden rule kind of stuff We talk about this through the lens of politics, which makes sense, but we're talking as much about a social problem as a political one because it really does come down to what kind of community do you wanna live in? What kind of society do you want to live in and is this the model that you wanna have for how we treat one another? And I think ultimately most Americans would say no. I think a lot of them would say yes, but most of them will say no and if we can refocus the conversation on some of those things, I think we'll end up in a better place than if we let this be. And adjust what politics looks like going forward.

Well, Nicole Hemmer, thanks very much for the perspective. I appreciate it.

Thanks so much, David.

That's it for us today. Thank you for listening. And just a reminder, I want some ratings and reviews from you guys, wherever you listen. Love to hear what you think of the show and it helps other people find the show too. We'll be back on Sunday. I'll talk to you then.