Donald Trump is well-known for his racist dog whistles, appealing to the racists in his fanbase while being just obscure enough to deny it was racist at all. Sometimes, however, he doesn’t even try to obscure it. In 2016, Trump once retweeted a meme saying that 81 percent of white homocide victims were killed by black Americans. Just recently he retweeted a video of his supporters chanting “white power.” Now, his campaign has created a new logo with some eerie similarities to another famous logo from a racist history.
Holy shit. https://t.co/h3KVUtSoJE
— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) July 1, 2020
Just as “America First” was taken straight out of the Ku Klux Klan playbook and “Make America Great Again” was once “Make Germany Great Again” under Hitler, Trump’s new campaign logo bears an odd similarity to the former Nazi symbol, which was noticed and pointed out on Twitter by former CIA director and retired General Michael Hayden.
Lately, the Trump campaign has been busy trying to rekindle that old racist magic of 2016, with Trump playing his “us versus” them game with supporters, calling Black Lives Matter protesters “thugs” and pitting them against white America, focusing on punishing those who deface racist monuments to Civil War figures, and tweeting that painting “Black Lives Matter” on Fifth Avenue in New York City “denigrating.”
No one should be surprised by Trump’s use of racist signaling; it’s a long and tired strategy by a campaign that seems to be growing tired of trying.
Twitter certainly wasn’t surprised, although they were certainly critical. Read some of their comments below:
Featured image screenshot via YouTube