Analyse
The U.S. President is portraying the Iran conflict on TikTok and other platforms as a video game. This is a deliberate tactic by Trump.
March 21, 2026, 1:52 PMMarch 21, 2026, 1:52 PM
Raffael Schuppisser / ch media
On February 14, 2018, a 17-year-old entered his former school in Parkland, Florida, armed with a semi-automatic weapon. The teenager killed 17 people and injured an equal number. President Donald Trump quickly identified a culprit: video games. “I hear more and more people saying that the amount of violence in video games really shapes the minds of young people,” Trump said.
He agreed with then-President Bill Clinton on this point. Clinton drew similar conclusions after the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. Media research now largely suggests this is an oversimplification, and that attributing such events to virtual violence is too effortless.
Game or Reality – It’s Hard to Share
During his first presidency, Trump viewed games as part of the problem. Now, in his second term, they have become part of the solution. He is using them to justify his war: on the official social media channels of the White House, Trump is circulating videos that aestheticize the current conflict with Iran by mixing real combat scenes with video game content.
This looks like this: first, a scene from the first-person shooter “Call of Duty” shows a hand entering a launch code, then a real scene of a rocket launching, followed by an impact on a truck.
In another video, it’s simpler: a pixelated game character swings a golf club to upbeat music in the family game “Wii Sports,” hitting the ball out of the frame. Then a cut to reality, where a military base is hit. “Hole in one,” a voice proclaims. A direct hit.
“Disgusting” is how the Archbishop of Chicago described it. Other internet users use even more drastic words: “Obscene.” – “Absolutely tasteless!” Trump and his administration are turning war into a game. The suffering of the victims – including six Americans – is ignored.
The merging of video game aesthetics and real war reporting marks a turning point in political communication: war is no longer explained or justified, but staged as entertaining spectacle. This development raises concerns about the normalization of conflict and the potential desensitization to its human cost.
A game is fun, played to pass the time. When children do it, there is often no clear goal. And that seems to be the case, listening to Trump and his ministers, in the Iran conflict as well. Regime change, destruction of the nuclear weapons program, a warning to China? These are all reasons that have been given for the war. But they cannot really explain it; the statements and actions of the US government are too contradictory.
Trump Deliberately Blurs the Line
Trump mixes war and games into a social media mashup. But warfare and computer games are actually becoming increasingly similar. On the one hand, computer game graphics are becoming more realistic – scenes from “Call of Duty” or “Arma” have even been used to spread fake news about wars. Who can see the difference? weapons of war are becoming more and more like computer games. Drones can be controlled from miles away from the deployment location – you don’t risk your life, just your finger on the trigger.
Trump in 2018 at a speech by then-Washington Governor Jay Inslee on how to prevent school shootings.Image: EPA/EPA
This alignment is driven by computer technology. The mixing becomes problematic when This proves no longer clear what is game and what is war. Trump deliberately blurs this line – and thereby recodes the political assessment of video games. What was once criticized as a cause of violence now serves as an aesthetic tool to stage real violence and to emotionally distance oneself from it. (aargauerzeitung.ch)
