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Trump Pence Logo Same as White Supremacy Logo
President Donald Trump promoted an independently produced campaign video via his Twitter feed on Wednesday afternoon, which unto itself, is not terribly newsworthy. The discovery, however, that the logo used at in end screen title card features a lion illustration that was also used by a Dutch...
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President Donald Trump promoted a new campaign video via his Twitter feedon Wednesday afternoon, which unto itself, is not terribly newsworthy. The discovery, however, that the logo used at in end screen title card features a lion illustration that appears to have been taken from a Dutch Twitter account suspended for promoting White Supremacy? Well, that merits a closer look.
The use of the same logo appears to have been first reported by former Snopes Managing Editor Brooke Binkowski, who revealed the similarity via a series of tweets:
She then followed with a link to an archived version of a now-deleted tweet by VDARE, an anti-immigration group criticized for promoting White Supremacy. As one can see in the embedded image below, the lion logo used is the same:
Mediaite reported in March of 2016 about a group that calls themselves the “Lion Guard,” who had stepped up to monitor “anti-MAGA” (as in Make America Great Again) activity online before it can spill out into the real world. Their Twitter feed bio describes themselves as “An informal civilian group dedicated to the safety and security of#Trump supporters by exposing Far-Left infiltrators and saboteurs” and uses the very same lion logo.
The inspiration for their name and logo? It appears to have come from that time Trump retweeted the following Benito Mussolini quote “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.”
Binkowski’s discovery started something of a crowd-sourced research project on Twitter, which led to the following claim using research photo search Tin Eye:
The use of an image alleged to have been used as a symbol of White Supremacy is, of course, not a good look for any campaign, especially one that has often been criticized for using dog whistles in an appeal to xenophobic hate groups. It is difficult to imagine, however, that any senior members of the Trump campaign were specifically aware that this logo was “borrowed” from people espousing hate.
The most charitable explanation for use of this logo? Well, it is far more likely the result of decisions made by a mid-level video editor or graphics team member, and ultimately approved by senior campaign leadership who were unaware of the meaning/history of said logo.
The hiring of team members who appear to be fluent in logos used by White Supremacy groups, however, raises more questions about the judgment of those leading the Trump reelection efforts and does nothing to tamp down the reasonable criticism that Trump’s team is consistently flirting with a dangerously xenophobic section that represents a portion of their base of their supporters.
Mediaite has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment and will update this post accordingly.
