US President Donald Trump’s re-election team has ridiculed the most recent attempt to tie the commander in chief to Nazism after critics compared a campaign T-shirt graphic to a logo commonly used in the Third Reich.
Responding to the allegation that the T-shirt ripped off the emblem of the Nazi Party – spread online by the president’s detractors on Wednesday – Trump’s campaign team dug up photos showing prominent Democratic figures donning similar symbols, asking whether they also had something to hide.
“This is moronic. In Democrats’ America, Mount Rushmore glorifies white supremacy and the bald eagle with an American flag is a Nazi symbol,” the campaign said in a statement addressing the controversy, adding that Democrats “have lost their minds.”
A number of netizens also shot back that eagle symbolism is found in countless American seals and logos dating back centuries. The bird was first chosen for the US national emblem in 1782 following the War for Independence – slightly predating the Nazis’ rise to power over 150 years later. Even self-avowed opponents of the president noted that the eagle theme is not “uncommon,” pointing to the seal of the US Marine Corps and other military symbols.
Critics, including a Democratic congressional candidate for Virginia’s 1st District, were not convinced, however, arguing that the eagle’s head always faces rightward in American iconography, while the Nazis – as well as the Trump campaign – had the bird facing to the left (so long as one doesn’t count older versions of the US presidential seal or the Nazi ‘Reichsadler,’ that is).
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The incident is not the first time the Trump Team has been accused of reviving Nazi imagery. Most recently, the campaign came under fire after running a social media ad featuring a red triangle, which it said was the logo of Antifa – a loosely organized faction of left-wing street protesters. Opponents, however, insisted the symbol was taken directly from the Third Reich, as a nearly identical shape was used to mark political prisoners in concentration camps.
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