After days of hints, videos of old-school gaming cords being plugged into old televisions, and messages that something big was coming, the official White House account posted one final teaser: “It’s time to level up, patriots… something new dropping soon.” Then, at 4:51 PM last Thursday, they revealed it. “CAN’T STOP WINNING. Build the wall. Deport. Fill a Trump Account. LIVE - PLAY NOW ARCADE.GOV.”
The website they linked to didn’t have a collection of classic childhood games, or even updated ones to help teach the next generation civics and how the government operates. Instead, the arcade games, all targeting children, were MAGA versions. There were ones to build a border wall, to chase down immigrants for deportation, and even one to collect money for Trump Accounts. Yet the message behind all of these games was clear: make cruelty fun. Teach children to see racism and the dehumanization of immigrants as normal. Make the hatred of black and brown people a good thing and turn chasing them into entertainment. But mostly, turn the suffering of real human beings into entertainment.
Oh my goodness! As a British educator with US grandkids I am filled with horror at this news. We must protect our children from these horrible monsters
... And every day the jaw drops lower. Strange how one keeps thinking that the orange turd and his sycophants could do nothing more reprehensible, and yet they succeed. One also continues to be appalled by the total spinelessness of those whose elected and paid for job is to protect us, never mind those too young to protect themselves. This post has made me so angry.
Trump is far too stupid to come up with something like that. It is more likely to be the brainchild of the poisonous ferrets (didn’t want to use the other word starting with an ‘f’) of project 2025. Really sick people that lot.
This feels like a whole new step in the Trump playbook. Moving supporters on from not just believing and holding the faith to actually being complicit in the regime’s activities. What is an invitation to play games today will become a call to real action tomorrow.
One wonders about that placeholder game. Will it involve guns? Will players be asked to protect the President from stolen (mid-term) elections?
This had to be the next move, normalising an activity for our children and young people by devious means into a society which is cruel and extreme. It makes me sick to my stomach that even one young person may be channelled to through this route.
I am carefully watching my 4 yr old grandson grow up (with parents who carefully monitor his media use) nevertheless picking up jokey, frenetic cartoons in a serious way and I feel somewhat bothered yet hopeful that his little mind does not get contaminated by difference and hatred. He already from British to US parlance assures us we now have garbage cans where we always had dustbins! Small but significant.
As she points out a 1938 game the SS thought even went too far.
In 1938, a private German company called Günther & Co. produced a board game called Juden Raus! (“Jews Out!”). It included dice, tokens, and a town map. Players raced to “collect” caricatured Jewish figures and move them off the board. The winner was the first player to drive all of their figures out. The board read “Auf nach Palästina!” (“Off to Palestine!”).
The Wiener Holocaust Library still holds the game.
Juden Raus! was a game you won by removing the demonized group from the play area. It was scored and replayable. Rio Run’s structure is not much different.
Juden Raus! was not a state product - it was created by a private company cashing in on deplorable government policy, and Hitler’s regimes own enforcers actually rejected any association with it. On December 29, 1938, Das Schwarze Korps, the SS newspaper, attacked the game as disrespectful to the policy. They felt it turned what the SS insisted was a methodical, carefully considered plan into a game of chance.
Even in 1938, a heinous era of this world, the state did not stoop to publishing a deportation game, and when a private company did, the SS said it was beneath the seriousness of the policy. In 2026, the state is the publisher.
The “coming horde” framing carries the same lineage. Per the Holocaust Encyclopedia.
As she put it in her article — The current White House has now made games and are publishing them. Not a private company that made a game that was rejected by Hitler’s SS regime in 1938.
Those foul, abhorrent White House video games are truly horrendous. The level of vileness is beyond staggering.
Have said that this Felon and everyone in his regime that they all just “rise to the level of incompetence” - stand corrected IMO — this Felon, this entire regime and every Republican in Congress, all are an absolute moral vacuum—full of malignant, iniquitous, rancid, sadistic so thoroughly corrupted soulless carcasses.
Midterms can’t come soon enough. It requires a Blue tsunami to even come close to flow all the garbage out the doors of Congress, along with each of the states and even local legislators into the sewers.
We deserve so much better. Our children and generations to come deserve it as well. We should demand so much better. What you tolerate today, you accept tomorrow. All of this, these past twenty months of pure hatred, making us all sicker, all poorer, and even more dumber due to the insidious vocabulary that comes out of that Felon’s mouth doesn’t even reach the level of a 3rd grader. Seriously a 3rd grader knows how to spell “dumb” and has a grasp of “affordability”.
All of this should not have been tolerated. Yet we have seen that a sitting Congress has and does absolutely nothing, because they abdicated their responsibilities not just to the Constitution but to every American, their constituents. This is and should be absolutely unacceptable.
Make your plan to Vote - assist where you can to campaigns whether it be money directly to those campaigns or as a volunteer. If possible carpool individuals to voting locations since the intent is to muck up mail in ballots. Vote early, lines may be long and bring water and snacks. — VOTE
These games are utterly sick and obscene, and to think they are on an official website! Aren’t there enough half-way decent Republicans in Trump’s orbit to object strongly to this stuff? There is clearly no low that Trump won’t go to! It’s grotesque and abominable. There aren’t enough words!
Beyond belief, beyond imagination, beyond understanding, sick to my stomach...
MCFA = Make Cruelty Fun Again... Trump's new motto.
I feel the touch of the black heart of Stephen Miller in these "games".
OMG… all this fascist racist and corrupt admin has gone bloody cuckoo! Down with them all!
Oh my goodness! As a British educator with US grandkids I am filled with horror at this news. We must protect our children from these horrible monsters
... And every day the jaw drops lower. Strange how one keeps thinking that the orange turd and his sycophants could do nothing more reprehensible, and yet they succeed. One also continues to be appalled by the total spinelessness of those whose elected and paid for job is to protect us, never mind those too young to protect themselves. This post has made me so angry.
Trump is far too stupid to come up with something like that. It is more likely to be the brainchild of the poisonous ferrets (didn’t want to use the other word starting with an ‘f’) of project 2025. Really sick people that lot.
This feels like a whole new step in the Trump playbook. Moving supporters on from not just believing and holding the faith to actually being complicit in the regime’s activities. What is an invitation to play games today will become a call to real action tomorrow.
One wonders about that placeholder game. Will it involve guns? Will players be asked to protect the President from stolen (mid-term) elections?
It is beyond horrific.
Is there no bottom level that this hideous man will stoop too
He cares for nobody except himself and money.
I wonder what the black politicians think and his judges. Are they not appalled.
Please vote him out forever.
This had to be the next move, normalising an activity for our children and young people by devious means into a society which is cruel and extreme. It makes me sick to my stomach that even one young person may be channelled to through this route.
I am carefully watching my 4 yr old grandson grow up (with parents who carefully monitor his media use) nevertheless picking up jokey, frenetic cartoons in a serious way and I feel somewhat bothered yet hopeful that his little mind does not get contaminated by difference and hatred. He already from British to US parlance assures us we now have garbage cans where we always had dustbins! Small but significant.
Thank you Heather.
Read this article by Heather Ashley in reference to these White House video games.
https://theheatherashley.substack.com/p/the-nazis-spoke-against-a-deportation?r=viplr&utm_medium=ios
As she points out a 1938 game the SS thought even went too far.
In 1938, a private German company called Günther & Co. produced a board game called Juden Raus! (“Jews Out!”). It included dice, tokens, and a town map. Players raced to “collect” caricatured Jewish figures and move them off the board. The winner was the first player to drive all of their figures out. The board read “Auf nach Palästina!” (“Off to Palestine!”).
The Wiener Holocaust Library still holds the game.
https://wienerholocaustlibrary.org/object/obj046/
Juden Raus! was a game you won by removing the demonized group from the play area. It was scored and replayable. Rio Run’s structure is not much different.
Juden Raus! was not a state product - it was created by a private company cashing in on deplorable government policy, and Hitler’s regimes own enforcers actually rejected any association with it. On December 29, 1938, Das Schwarze Korps, the SS newspaper, attacked the game as disrespectful to the policy. They felt it turned what the SS insisted was a methodical, carefully considered plan into a game of chance.
https://english.tau.ac.il/news/wiener_exhibition_2023
Even in 1938, a heinous era of this world, the state did not stoop to publishing a deportation game, and when a private company did, the SS said it was beneath the seriousness of the policy. In 2026, the state is the publisher.
The “coming horde” framing carries the same lineage. Per the Holocaust Encyclopedia.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/defining-the-enemy
As she put it in her article — The current White House has now made games and are publishing them. Not a private company that made a game that was rejected by Hitler’s SS regime in 1938.
Those foul, abhorrent White House video games are truly horrendous. The level of vileness is beyond staggering.
Have said that this Felon and everyone in his regime that they all just “rise to the level of incompetence” - stand corrected IMO — this Felon, this entire regime and every Republican in Congress, all are an absolute moral vacuum—full of malignant, iniquitous, rancid, sadistic so thoroughly corrupted soulless carcasses.
Midterms can’t come soon enough. It requires a Blue tsunami to even come close to flow all the garbage out the doors of Congress, along with each of the states and even local legislators into the sewers.
We deserve so much better. Our children and generations to come deserve it as well. We should demand so much better. What you tolerate today, you accept tomorrow. All of this, these past twenty months of pure hatred, making us all sicker, all poorer, and even more dumber due to the insidious vocabulary that comes out of that Felon’s mouth doesn’t even reach the level of a 3rd grader. Seriously a 3rd grader knows how to spell “dumb” and has a grasp of “affordability”.
All of this should not have been tolerated. Yet we have seen that a sitting Congress has and does absolutely nothing, because they abdicated their responsibilities not just to the Constitution but to every American, their constituents. This is and should be absolutely unacceptable.
Make your plan to Vote - assist where you can to campaigns whether it be money directly to those campaigns or as a volunteer. If possible carpool individuals to voting locations since the intent is to muck up mail in ballots. Vote early, lines may be long and bring water and snacks. — VOTE
Thankyou for letting us know about these games, Heather. You are courageous to go ahead, see them and analyse them.
These games are utterly sick and obscene, and to think they are on an official website! Aren’t there enough half-way decent Republicans in Trump’s orbit to object strongly to this stuff? There is clearly no low that Trump won’t go to! It’s grotesque and abominable. There aren’t enough words!