Trump tweets out campaign logo with white supremacist roots

This isn't the first time he's endorsed racist propaganda.

August 29, 2019

Posted August 29, 2019

Last week, GOOD reported on an Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) morning briefing sent to Department of Justice employees which contained a link to a white nationalist blog post.

The link was to a story attacking immigration judges published on VDare, a site that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls an "anti-immigration hate website" that "regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists and anti-Semites."

A spokesperson for the EOIR responded to the incident by saying "The Department of Justice condemns anti-Semitism in the strongest terms."

While the link in the briefing appeared to be an isolated incident, the memo was a bad look for President Trump's Department of Justice, given his cozy relationship with white nationalists.

On Wednesday morning, Trump shared a video on Twitter created by @som3thingwicked that brought Trump's connection to white nationalists back in the spotlight.

RELATED: The Justice Department sent immigration judges a white nationalist blog post

The video touts the president's accomplishments using some rather dubious numbers and concludes with the image of a lion.

Thank you for the support as we MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! pic.twitter.com/qKgwRMSgcf
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 28, 2019

The lion image has been used in the past by a group known as the "Lion Guard," who works to suppress anti-Trump sentiment online. It has also been used by VDare in the past.

It's believed the imagery was inspired by a Mussolini quote Trump once tweeted: "Better to live a day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep."

Why the President of the United States quotes fascist dictators is a whole other conversation.

RELATED: Jewish activists were protesting an ICE facility when a truck drove straight toward them

Brooke Binkowski, a former managing editor at Snopes, pointed out the connection between the logo and VDare's Dutch Twitter account. The website's American account is currently suspended.

2019 / 2016 pic.twitter.com/0oWGl0U3DE
— Brooke Binkowski (@brooklynmarie) August 29, 2019

The video's creator released a statement blaming Google for tagging the video "as MAGA."

For those asking me about lions.

I googled "trump logo png." It returned several images, which I recreated.

GOOGLE. TAGGED. THAT. LION. AS. MAGA.

If it's something else, it occurs to me the REAL question is: Why is GOOGLE associating white supremacist metadata with Trump/MAGA? pic.twitter.com/zfhxabZq6F
— SOMETHiNG WiCKËD (@som3thingwicked) August 29, 2019

The inclusion of the lion image may be accidental, but it isn't the first time Trump has tweeted out memes and videos with white supremacist connotations.

There was the tweet featuring Hillary Clinton with "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever" written in a Star of David. Trump deleted the original image and replaced the star with a circle. He would later claim the Star of David was a sheriff's badge.

He also tweeted out a meme with fake crime statistics about black people that was created by a neo-Nazi who praises Adolf Hitler in his profile.

In 2016, he retweeted a tweet from a person with the handle @WhiteGenocideTM. The profile, which has since been suspended, used the name Donald Trumpovitz and linked to a website containing a pro-Adolf Hitler documentary. The profile also had the words "Get the F--- Out of My Country" written on the background photo, and featured a picture of George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party.