In the hallowed halls of American power, where decisions of life and death were once made with somber gravity and layers of strategic review, a new and unsettling force has taken hold. It is a force not measured in diplomatic progress or territorial security, but in likes, retweets, and the elusive “viral moment.”
We have entered the era of the “clictatorship,” a term coined to describe a government where the primary objective is no longer the administration of the state, but the creation of content. This transition from a traditional republic to a digital spectacle is not merely a change in communication style; it is a fundamental shift in how power is exercised and how human lives are valued.
The recent military operations in Venezuela serve as a harrowing case study for this new reality. For decades, American foreign policy, regardless of the party in power, operated under a set of established norms.
The use of war powers was a last resort, usually justified by clear national security interests, and almost always accompanied by a rigorous plan for the “day after.” However, the current landscape reveals a different set of priorities.
The rush to invade and extract a foreign leader—an act of war in any traditional sense—is now being framed and filtered through the lens of social media promotion. The White House releases photos of the President in the situation room almost instantaneously, not to provide transparency, but to drive a narrative of strength that can be consumed in seconds on a smartphone screen.
The most jarring image from these recent events was perhaps the sight of the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, projected onto a massive screen in a high-security setting, positioned directly behind the Director of the CIA. This is a space typically reserved for classified intelligence, satellite feeds, and real-time tactical data.
To see it occupied by a public social media feed, complete with emojis and trending hashtags, is a visual representation of the rot at the core of our current institutional priorities. It suggests that the feedback loop of the internet is now considered as vital—or perhaps more vital—than the intelligence gathered by the nation’s seventeen specialized agencies.
This is not just a breach of decorum; it is a tactical nightmare. The rush to share information within thirty minutes of an operation means that the standard “layers of review” have been discarded.
Military experts and intelligence veterans warn of the “mosaic theory,” where adversaries can piece together sensitive information from seemingly random details shared in the heat of a social media push. Who was in the room? What was the timeline?
What kind of technology was visible in the background? In the quest to win the morning news cycle or top the trending charts, the administration is providing a roadmap for our enemies, potentially endangering the lives of the operators in the field who are actually doing the work while the politicians handle the “content.”
The obsession with engagement has a deeply dehumanizing effect. When the Department of Homeland Security compares immigration enforcement to a video game like Halo, it strips away the humanity of the individuals involved.
In the game, players fight parasitic, non-human aliens; by using this imagery for real-world border policy, the government encourages its citizens to view other human beings as mere obstacles in a digital simulation. This is the nihilism of the clictatorship.
Stories of people and countries in conflict become abstract, buried under a pile of memes and recursive references that exist for little more than “scroll-by entertainment.” The pain and suffering of real people are flattened into a format that fits between a recipe video and a fashion ad.
This trend extends to the highest levels of the Department of Justice. During Senate hearings, instead of engaging with the complex legal questions at hand, leaders like Pam Bondy have been observed bringing notes that seem entirely focused on delivering “zingers” for social media.
The goal is not to inform the Senate or the public, but to create a ten-second clip that can be shared by partisan accounts to “own” the opposition. When the leader of the DOJ is more concerned with how a response will play on a “far-right internet talking point” than with the legality of an operation, the rule of law itself begins to tremble.
The government is essentially asking its followers, “What kind of content do you want to see more of?” This is the language of a YouTuber, not a public servant.
The cost of this obsession is becoming increasingly clear, and it is measured in blood. The Venezuelan operation killed dozens of people and put American soldiers in significant harm’s way.
Yet, the President’s own description of the event was that he watched it “literally like I was watching a television show.” This admission is perhaps the most honest look we have had into the mind of the modern content-driven leader.
If the world is a stage and the military is a production crew, then the casualties are just special effects. This “brain pickling,” as some observers have called it, occurs when the distinction between reality and the mediated spectacle vanishes.
We saw this dynamic play out domestically as well, in a raid in Chicago where a heavy military-style response was deployed against a local apartment complex. Helicopters landed on roofs, and children were pulled out into the cold and zip-tied, all for a “moment” that was blasted across social media as a victory against gangs.
The net consequence? Zero indictments. The “victory” was the photo op; the reality was the trauma inflicted on families for a narrative that had no basis in legal results.
The lives of those residents were collateral damage in a hunt for clicks. This is the heart of the absurdist nightmare we now inhabit.
The danger of this system is that it requires constant escalation. To keep an audience engaged, the stakes must always be higher.
Yesterday it was a social media zinger; today it is a raid in South America; tomorrow, the “content” will require something even more shocking. This is an addiction, both for the creators in the White House and the audience at home.
The humanity is gone, replaced by a desperate need for the next digital hit. Common sense has been sacrificed on the altar of the algorithm.
Is there an antidote to this? Some suggest an urgent need for “media literacy,” especially for older generations who did not grow up navigating the minefields of social media.
We must learn to recognize when we are being manipulated by “tech slop” and propaganda designed to elicit an emotional response rather than provide information. We must demand that our leaders return to the slow, deliberate work of governance, where secrecy is protected, and planning extends beyond the next upload.
If we continue to treat national security as a reality show, we should not be surprised when the ending is a tragedy that no amount of likes can fix. The spectacle has supplanted reality, and it is the American people who will eventually pay the price for the admission ticket.
