The White House on Tuesday afternoon posted a video online showing immigrants in shackles being prepared to board a deportation flight from Seattle.
The video includes footage of a set of handcuffs and chains jingling as they are pulled from a basket containing other shackles and then laid out on the airport tarmac next to four other sets of restraints.
The X post by the White House is titled, "ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight."
ASMR is a nonclinical term that stands for "Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response." It refers to a pleasant, tingling feeling some people experience when watching videos featuring unusual sounds, like whispering or fingernails tapping on a surface.
One shot in the 41-second video shows an immigrant with his hands cuffed in front of him and ankles bound by a chain as he walks past an officer.
Other shots include a close-up of a man having his handcuffs linked together, a man's feet in chains as he walks up a stairway to a plane, and a man about to board the aircraft. None of the men in the video have their faces shown.
But the clip and the White House's description of it capture the enthusiasm in the Trump administration and among the president's supporters for his mass deportations.
meenarstotzka on February 19th, 2025 at 12:23 UTC »
I'm 100% sure that the people who run the White House account is Elon Musk's team (AKA Musk cronies). Everything about them scream the cringe internet 4chan meme.
Icy_Reward727 on February 19th, 2025 at 11:19 UTC »
What do they think they are doing?
Our KIDS are watching this shit.
I'm a high school teacher. My students are SHUT. DOWN. You know why? Because their parents are busting their asses and can barely put food on the table. If they go to college, they'll be in MASSIVE debt and may very well not find a job in current economic conditions. They know AI is coming for some of what used to be great jobs. They know (most of them anyway) that MAGA culture is toxic and that the environment is shifting under their feet. They know climate change and social media and corporate greed is destroying the world around them.
And some of them are TERRIFIED they are going to be separated from their parents. Parents who have worked their fingers to the bone and have been here in some cases for decades, people who are part of our community. These kids are getting online and seeing the U.S. GOVERNMENT post people who could be their own parents-and may be, any hour of any day now-in CHAINS, and that government is posting it as a fucking ASMR video.
MAGA has broken the social contract. My high school students are checked the hell out of their education because THEY FEEL THERE IS NO HOPE.
What do they have to look forward to?
Trying to keep my cool every day and teach them what they need to know for a world that doesn't even exist anymore, while I'm grieving and ENRAGED inside is sapping every bit of energy.
I'm exhausted. This is fucking exhausting and terrifying and horrifying and I want to go out under the sky and scream at the top of my lungs.
AwsumO2000 on February 19th, 2025 at 10:59 UTC »
american fascists are recognisable by two things: their stupidity and their lack of empathy.