Donald Trump published this Saturday on his Truth Social account and on the official communications account of the White House, Rapid Response 47, a video featuring a chilling phrase that is already circulating as a meme on social media: “Okay, we have it in our setting. Fire. Boom.”.
The clip, published this Saturday at 5:47 PM, surpassed 67,787 views within a few hours and generated 3,068 likes and 159 comments, marking what appears to be the latest installment of a provocative memetic communication strategy that Trump's team has intensified in recent weeks.
The content comes just five days after Trump starred in a widely discussed scene in the Oval Office where he mimicked the shooting down of Iranian missiles with onomatopoeic sounds, exclaiming "ba ba ba ba ba" and claiming that Patriot systems shot down 111 missiles that Iran fired at a U.S. ship.
In that same intervention, he labeled the Iranian leaders as "lunatics" who "only make missiles."
In the Cuban community, both on the island and in exile, this type of publication is not seen as mere jokes. The new video of "Fire. Boom." arrives amid a wave of memes that have been directly targeting the regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel since mid-May.
A parody of the song "Un Tin" aimed at Díaz-Canel amassed over 31,500 views in just a few hours with phrases like "I advise you, buddy, to take the first plane," and the comedian Javier Berridy published a viral parody of Trump "calling Raúl Castro" that also quickly spread across social media.
The political background of these memes is significant. On May 2, Trump declared in Florida that the United States would "take Cuba almost immediately" after concluding operations in Iran. On January 29, he had labeled Cuba a "failed nation" and claimed that "it will not survive."
And in January, Congressman Carlos Giménez delivered a direct message to Díaz-Canel: "The puppet dictator of Cuba is next."
Whether the "Fire. Boom." of this Saturday is a joke, a warning, or both at once is a question that, for now, the Trump administration has no interest in answering.
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