There used to be a time, specifically in the darker corners of the twentieth century, when state propaganda was a serious business. When governments wanted to lie to you, they put some real effort into it. They would erase fallen generals from photographs with painstaking care or stage elaborate film sets to convince the masses that the harvest was bountiful. It was terrifying, yes, but it was professional. It had a certain grim dignity to it.

But look at us now. We have reached a point in the collapse of Western civilization where the White House—the seat of the most powerful executive branch on the planet—is now essentially run like a fan page for a moody teenager.

Let us look at the facts, because they are more ridiculous than anything a fiction writer could invent. The White House recently posted an image of Nekima Levy Armstrong. She is a civil rights lawyer and activist who was arrested. In the real world, the world where actual light hits actual lenses, Ms. Armstrong looked composed. She looked calm. Perhaps she was defiant, or perhaps she was just tired. But she was certainly not weeping uncontrollably.

However, calm dignity does not get clicks. It does not feed the rage machine. So, what did the communications team of a nuclear superpower do? Did they accept reality? Of course not. Reality is boring. Reality doesn't go viral. According to an analysis by The Guardian, the image was digitally altered. They warped her face. They added the visual language of despair where there was none. They essentially applied a "sad face" filter to a political opponent because the truth wasn't dramatic enough for their Twitter feed.

This is not just lying; it is pathetic lying. It is the kind of thing a thirteen-year-old does to an ex-girlfriend on social media to make her look bad. It is petty, it is small, and it is happening in the Oval Office.

But the act itself isn't even the worst part. The worst part is the pride they take in it. When asked if the image was doctored, the White House didn't apologize. They didn't blame a rogue intern. They didn't pretend it was a glitch in the upload. No, they doubled down with the swagger of a high school bully who knows the teacher is asleep.

Kaelan Dorr, the deputy communications director, responded with a statement that should be carved onto the tombstone of American political discourse: "The memes will continue."

Read that again. "The memes will continue."

This is an official government stance. We are no longer discussing policy, or law, or justice. We are discussing "memes." The government is admitting, openly and loudly, that they are trolling you. They view their job not as the administration of a complex nation, but as content creation. They are influencers with drone strike capabilities.

There is a deep, exhausting cynicism here that is hard to overstate. By altering a photo to make an arrested woman look like she is sobbing, the state is admitting that they need you to feel a specific emotion: humiliation. They want their opponents to look weak, broken, and pathetic. And if the opponent refuses to look that way in real life, the government will just fix it in post-production.

It destroys the very concept of shared reality. We already knew politicians lie with words. We accepted that long ago. But now they are telling us that our eyes don't matter either. They are saying, "She was crying because we said she was crying, and here is the picture we made to prove it."

It is the death of seriousness. How is anyone supposed to respect the rule of law when the people enforcing it are treating arrests like content for a comedy site? This is the "theater of the absurd" I often talk about, but the actors have forgotten their lines and are just making faces at the audience.

In Europe, we look at this with a mixture of horror and exhaustion. We have our own incompetent bureaucrats, certainly. We have corruption. But this specific brand of digital childishness seems uniquely American. It is the result of a culture that has merged entertainment and governance so completely that they can no longer tell the difference.

The White House is telling you exactly who they are. They are not leaders; they are posters. They live for the engagement, the likes, and the reaction. They have turned the machinery of the state into an app for making fun of people. And as Mr. Dorr promised, the memes will indeed continue. Because when you have no actual solutions to the crumbling infrastructure, the social unrest, or the economic anxiety, all you have left is Photoshop and a bad attitude.