Every day in the United States brings some new scandal, horror, atrocity, or unprecedented behavior from the Trump administration. That said, the launch of arcade.gov, a collection of Flash-style games developed(?) by the White House, is a regular old, bald-faced attempt at brainwashing children.
That’s the kind of headline you can at least wrap your head around.
The collection of games was announced on X with a series of copyright-trampling posts that turned the Sega logo into a MAGA logo, ripped off Nintendo’s Gamecube startup screen, used the classic Xbox startup screen and the Playstation startup screen, and copied the Pac-Man logo. All completely normal things that those litigious companies will be fine with, I’m sure.
Image: whitehouse.gov
The arcade is actually hosted at whitehouse.gov/arcade and launched with five games. The first is a Flappy Bird clone called Flappy Bill in which you fly a bald eagle carrying a bill through the monuments of the National Mall. So long as you don’t think too much about how icons of American democracy are presented as obstacles to passing legislation, this is actually the least offensive game on there.
Image: whitehouse.gov
The next is called, sigh, Build the Wall. The tagline for the game — on the White House’s website, remember — is “Protect the border from the coming horde.” So, racist dogwhistle right out of the gate there, but it’s actually worse. It’s a straight-up Tetris ripoff to the point where the Tetris official brand Instagram account put out a statement distancing itself. To the right of where you drop the blocks to build your wall, there’s a sign that reads “Southern Border.” And then, after a couple seconds, 8-bit monsters start running across the screen. That’s not exaggeration. They’re all misshapen, oddly colored, and have pointy teeth. They’re depicted as an actual monster horde.
Image: whitehouse.gov
The third game is a Snake ripoff called Rio Run and has the tagline, “Border patrol along the Rio Grande,” so it’s also full-on racist from the start. In this one, you guide an 8-bit Tom Homan as he gathers up dark-skinned people. As they get added to his line of prisoners, your “Deported” score increases by one and they get put in orange jumpsuits. It’s honestly hard to look at.
Image: whitehouse.gov
There’s a MAHA-themed ripoff of Tapper (a game that even I barely remember) called Supply Line in which you “Sort the school lunch to Make America Healthy Again.” It’s honestly the least offensive of the collection, even if it only serves as propaganda for Captain Brainworm’s nutrition misinformation. I’m really unclear as to why there’s a boxer involved.
Image: whitehouse.gov
The final game (for now) is Trump Savings Tycoon — “Fill your kids’ Trump Accounts” — and is interesting for a couple reasons. The first is that I completely forgot that Trump added an app-based, $1,000 child incentive to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year. These accounts have been described as a “back door for privatizing Social Security.”
The other interesting thing about it is more subtle. In the background, the Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool feature prominently. And the Reflecting Pool is not green. Beyond that, though, is a giant, ugly crane positioned next to the White House. That imagery comes just days after the Supreme Court decided to allow construction on Trump’s ballroom to continue.
The arcade is, in a word, disgusting. It’s propaganda. It’s brainwashing. It steals copyrighted material. It’s racist and dehumanizing. It’s full of disinformation. It’s probably illegal.
So, you know, just another day in Trump’s America.
