The US government is spending millions of taxpayer dollars to get a blatantly partisan message in front of voters as the midterm elections loom.

And while these TV ads aren’t explicitly campaign ads, they might as well be.

They feature Donald Trump as a hero. They try to scare people into thinking that the US could become a communist country. They take shots at the news media and at vaguely described political enemies.

Two Democratic senators, Patty Murray and Chris Murphy, on Tuesday aptly called them “a shockingly corrupt use of taxpayer dollars”.

Their funding, through the Department of Homeland Security, may be illegal, according to experts, and is certainly unethical. They lack any hint of the public service message that the White House claims.

In fact, they closely fit the defining characteristics of propaganda, as described by the government accounting office, including “self-aggrandizement” or “puffery”.

But the agencies or institutions that could do something about them, including the supposedly independent FCC, are eager to do the president’s bidding. Brendan Carr, the FCC chair, is a proud Trump toady,........

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