US Goes Into 'Sh*tposting' Overdrive With Series of Bizarre 'Haunting the Enemies of America' Halloween Posts

Official US government accounts marked Halloween with a run of provocative posts, including a sombrero carved into a pumpkin, a mock costume branding a Black man a 'SNAP FRAUDSTER' and a Pentagon video vowing to haunt America's enemies.

The posts landed only days before the midterm elections and drew criticism as inflammatory. Immigration and Customs Enforcement set footage of arrests and detained migrants to Michael Jackson's 'Thriller.'

Neither the White House nor Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins responded to requests for comment.

Pentagon Promises To Haunt Enemies

In internet slang, shitposting means posting deliberately provocative or absurd content to get a rise out of people. On and around 31 October, several of the federal government's most powerful agencies appeared to embrace the style on their official accounts.

The Defense Department posted a short black-and-white video on X on Saturday 31 October under the caption 'Haunting the enemies of America.'

The clip cut between missile launches and troops and footage of Trump vowing to kill drug traffickers. It also showed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pledging to kill anyone who kills Americans.

ICE's one-minute video, also posted on X, opened with horror film icons before switching to scenes of arrests and migrants in detention, with captions such as 'this guy was wanted for homicide.' The soundtrack was 'Thriller'.

The FBI joined in with an animated video featuring a caricature of its director, Kash Patel. Set to the same Michael Jackson tune, it presented statistics on falling crime. All three videos appeared on Halloween itself, two days after the White House shared its pumpkin.

Black Man Branded 'SNAP Fraudster'

Rollins also joined in. On Saturday, the agriculture secretary shared an image of a Black man standing in front of stacks of what appeared to be US currency, framed inside fake Spirit Halloween costume packaging with the headline 'SNAP FRAUDSTER.'

Rollins, whom Trump nominated as agriculture secretary in November 2024, oversees SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps. Her post had been viewed more than 1.2 million times. In the image, the man holds aloft what appears to be a burning banknote.

Spirit Halloween, the seasonal costume chain, has become a popular meme template online, with users mocking up its packaging to cast people or situations as off-the-shelf costumes. Rollins' post used that format to swap a novelty outfit for a criminal accusation.

'Some costumes come with a price tag. This one comes with a prison sentence,' the mock packaging reads. No court has sentenced New.

The photo appears to come from a September 2025 Instagram post by an account under the name Shawty Dred. The Justice Department identifies Shawty Dred as Mercedes Reshard New, a 39-year-old Atlanta-area social media personality. The AP's account links the image to that account, not to any specific alleged crime.

Prosecutors allege New controlled more than 350 fake SNAP accounts opened with stolen identities and used them to obtain more than £3m ($4m) in benefits in Georgia. A federal grand jury indicted him on 7 October on dozens of counts, including mail fraud and aggravated identity theft, and he was arrested on 13 October, Gray Media stations reported. The charges have not been proven in court, and New is presumed innocent.

White House's Sombrero Pumpkin Post

On Thursday, the White House posted its own seasonal offering on X: a pumpkin with a sombrero carved across it and the words 'Spooky szn is here.'

The sombrero has become a recurring image for the administration. Just over a year ago, during the government shutdown, the White House revived a deepfake video Trump had posted showing House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in a fake moustache and sombrero, accusing Democrats of acting for illegal immigrants rather than US citizens.

Jeffries called the meme bigoted. The White House played it on repeat in the briefing room, though Vice President JD Vance promised that the 'sombrero memes will stop' once Democrats agreed to end the shutdown, according to the AP.

Critics Question Timing and Tone

Critics condemned the posts as inflammatory rhetoric. The administration's videos targeting undocumented immigrants have been widely denounced as degrading and racist, noting that the White House and Trump regularly post provocative content to troll opponents.

The posts arrived as the government pushes a sweeping campaign to showcase aggressive immigration enforcement and to highlight fraud crackdowns it says will save taxpayers money, the AP reported.

They also come at a moment when rising healthcare costs and other economic pressures have made affordability a top concern for voters.

The NAACP did not respond to the AP's request for comment. Neither did the White House or Rollins.