Propaganda at the boarding gate by John Kato

The first thing travelers should see at an airport is a gate number, not a political message. Yet during the Trump administration’s infamous government shutdown, passengers waiting to board flights were greeted with a video blaming Democrats for the impasse. It played on loop across terminals, a glossy, taxpayer-funded piece of propaganda masquerading as a public announcement. This was not merely a political stunt. It was a clear warning sign that the machinery of government, once meant to serve the people was being twisted into a personal megaphone for one man’s political grievances.

Airports are supposed to symbolize connection, movement, freedom. But that day, they became instruments of manipulation, echoing a narrative designed not to inform, but to divide. The administration used federal infrastructure, paid for by all Americans, to push a partisan message. It wasn’t subtle. It was deliberate. And it reflected a larger rot: the blurring of lines between governance and personal loyalty, between communication and indoctrination.

What we witnessed was not just the airing of a video. It was the public display of an ideology that has come to define a large segment of the Republican Party under Trump, an ideology rooted in grievance, tribalism, and unquestioning devotion. This is what happens when a political movement abandons the idea of serving a nation and instead serves one man’s ego.

For decades, authoritarian regimes have used state media to control narratives, to ensure that their citizens hear only one story, the leader’s story. The United States, for all its flaws, was meant to stand as the antidote to that model. The press was free. The government’s voice was meant to be neutral. But in those looping airport screens, we caught a glimpse of something darker, the normalization of propaganda on American soil. It was a reminder that democracy doesn’t die in one dramatic moment; it erodes in small, cynical gestures, often wrapped in the language of “public information.”

Trump’s defenders often say that every president uses media to shape opinion. And they’re right, to a degree. Every administration has a message, a spin, a public relations arm. But this was different. This wasn’t policy communication; it was weaponization. It was a president using the state’s own communication infrastructure to demonize his opponents, to turn Americans against Americans while pretending to represent all of them.

That’s the hallmark of a cult, not a party. The Republican Party, once the home of ideological diversity and debate, has become a kind of personality church. Its loyalty tests are no longer about conservative principles or fiscal restraint, but about allegiance to one man’s narrative. Disagree with that narrative, and you’re not merely an opponent, you’re a traitor. That’s not politics. That’s authoritarianism in its infant form.

Consider the psychology of that airport video. Airports are spaces where people are captive, waiting, distracted, with little else to do but absorb what’s in front of them. By choosing that setting, the administration ensured a kind of forced audience. No one asked for political content while waiting for a delayed flight. Yet the government decided that Americans should be lectured by their own leaders not about safety, or weather, or travel updates, but about who to blame for their inconvenience. That’s not communication. That’s indoctrination by proximity.

It also reveals something profound about Trumpism: its obsession with narrative control. For a movement built on emotional loyalty rather than policy, control of the story is everything. If you can convince enough people that your enemies are the source of their pain, you never have to solve anything. You just have to keep the outrage alive. The airport screens were one more outlet for that outrage, one more attempt to redirect blame and sustain the illusion of persecution that fuels the entire enterprise.

And the Republican establishment, by and large, didn’t object. They shrugged, looked away, or worse, applauded. That silence that willingness to let propaganda seep into public space, is the real danger. It shows that the transformation is complete. The party of limited government is now a party comfortable with government as a weapon. The party that once warned of “big government overreach” now uses government power to enforce ideological conformity.

There’s a tragic irony in that. The same conservatives who once quoted Ronald Reagan’s warning that “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help,” now seem to find comfort in a government that’s here to scold, shame, and indoctrinate. They no longer fear the state, because they believe they own it.

But democracies don’t belong to anyone. They are on loan, sustained by the consent and vigilance of the governed. When those in power begin to see the institutions of government as personal property, the social contract begins to decay. The airport video was a symbol of that decay, the kind of seemingly minor event that historians later point to and say, “That’s when the line began to blur.”

What should frighten us is not that a video played once, but that it could so easily happen again and that millions would cheer it as strength rather than manipulation. Authoritarianism doesn’t always come draped in military uniforms or accompanied by censorship laws. Sometimes it comes wrapped in patriotism, broadcast on public screens, telling you who to blame while you wait for your boarding call.

The Trump years revealed just how vulnerable America is to this kind of slow corrosion. Institutions held barely but the mindset that allowed such propaganda to play unchecked still thrives. The cult of personality didn’t end with Trump’s term. It lingers, waiting for its next opportunity to bend the machinery of government toward one man’s image once again.

At the end of the day, the issue isn’t just about Trump or one video. It’s about whether Americans are willing to see propaganda for what it is a test of submission disguised as information. Because when the state begins to speak only for the ruler, democracy has already begun to whisper.

So the next time you’re in an airport and the government starts telling you who to blame for your delayed flight, remember: propaganda doesn’t always need a dictator’s stage. Sometimes, it just needs a terminal with good lighting and a captive audience.