Keen On

What is the MAGA movement’s aesthetic? According to the New York Times’ Dan Brooks, it’s an aesthetic captured by the generative AI video “Trump Gaza”. Childishly absurd, it’s an aesthetic, Brooks suggests, of “bearded belly dancers, an Elon Musk look-alike on the beach and a golden statue of President Trump”. It’s not reality, of course. There are neither bearded belly dancers nor golden statues of Trump in Gaza right now. It doesn’t even resemble actual MAGA America. But as Brooks notes, the MAGA aesthetic - driven by AI generated visuals - is social and cultural “posturing”. It’s the post-ironic irony of social media. Unseriously serious. Designed for Instagram and TikTok. Here are the five KEEN ON AMERICA takeaways in our conversation with Dan Brooks:* The MAGA style employs a unique form of irony - Brooks describes it as "unstable irony" rather than the "stable irony" of traditional satirists like Jonathan Swift or Stephen Colbert. This style mixes sincere statements with exaggerations and jokes in a way