Awesome failure

Trump's speech before the brinwashed teens featured a huge image of the presidential seal.

Almost.   The not uncommon Trump & Company organization failure featured an image theygot from the internet:  a photoshopped image showing the Russian two-headed eagle holding a bunch of golf clubs.

Epic fail, and what a great image it engendered.

When Mr Trump took to the stage at Turning Point USA's student summit, the president looked to be in his element, greeted by a crowd of adoring young conservatives.

After a 12-minute video detailing his journey to the White House, Mr Trump addressed the group, his remarks met with raucous applause.

"There's never been anything like this," Mr Trump said to the crowd.

[...]

First noted by the Washington Post, the seal that was flashed on screen as Mr Trump walked on stage had several calculated tweaks - all of which seemed to poke fun at the president.

  BBC

Double insult. The "Jeff Bezos Amazon Washington Post" - his arch nemesis.

In many ways, [Trump's introduction at Turning Point USA’s student summit] mirrored the production style that has become synonymous with Trump’s campaign rallies.

[...]

Charlie Kirk, Turning Point’s outspoken founder and executive director, was on his left. But the image on the screen to Trump’s right — captured in dozens of photos and videos from the event — is less familiar.

  WaPo

Charlie Kirk regularly gets into it with liberals and reasonable people on Twitter. This ought to bring them all sorts of fodder.

Neither the White House nor Turning Point knew who created [the seal image]. On Thursday morning, however, the conservative group announced it had fired the member of its video team who it says was responsible for displaying the fake seal.

Yeah, I guess that would kind of put a dent in your conservative career.

The eagle has two heads instead of one — a symbol historically tied to empire and dominance. It closely resembles the bird on the Russian coat of arms and also appears on the flags of Serbia, Albania and Montenegro. Its left talons, rather than clasping 13 arrows, appear to clutch a set of golf clubs.

[...]

On the official presidential seal, the eagle’s mouth holds a banner with the U.S. motto, “E pluribus unum” — out of many, one.

[...]

One Post reader noted a website that sells merchandise featuring what appears to be the same fake seal. In those images, the words on the parody eagle’s banner say “45 es un títere,” which in Spanish translates to “45 is a puppet.” [...] The fake seal on the shop’s merchandise shows the eagle clutching cash in its right talons.

[...]

“You should have control over what the private group is doing, what they’re putting on the screen and anything else,” said [Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush], now a law professor at the University of Minnesota. “To let someone project something on the screen that isn’t controlled by the White House is pretty stupid.”

That's the Trump administration, although I'm not sure why the Post was interviewing an ethics lawyer for this.

Painter and other legal experts say parodies of the seal are protected under the First Amendment right of free expression.

The projection appeared to be a practical joke — but one likely to embarrass a particularly image-conscious president, Painter said.

“Someone is going to be getting in trouble,” he said, “but they got one heck of a good laugh out of it.”

Kirk's organization is saying it was an unintentional mistake made by being rushed, even though they fired the person responsible. Who knows? I can believe either explanation.

A two-headed eagle also appears at the bottom of the logo for Turnberry, Trump’s luxury resort and golf course in Scotland.

And why would that be, I wonder. Here are the seal comparisons.



Joke seal on the left, real seal on the right.



Russian coat of arms on the left, joke seal on the right.

The Post also found the person who created the joke seal (not the one who projected it at Trump's rally).

[Charles Leazott, a] 46-year-old graphic designer threw it together after the 2016 presidential election — it was one part joke, one part catharsis. He used to be a proud Republican. He voted for George W. Bush. Twice.

But Donald J. Trump’s GOP was no longer his party. So he created a mock presidential seal to prove his point.

[...]

The faux seal was on-screen for at least 80 seconds, in plain sight but largely ignored.

[...]

A Turning Point spokesman said Wednesday the conservative group wasn’t even aware of the phony seal until The Post called him. He spent that night trying track down the culprit and determine whether it was an intentional act by a rogue staffer, or just an honest mistake.

[...]

“That’s a load of crap,” [Leazott] said in response to Turning Point’s explanation. “You have to look for this. There’s no way this was an accident is all I’m saying.”

[...]

“This is the most petty piece of art I have ever created,” the Richmond resident said in an interview with The Washington Post.

The seal wasn’t meant for a wide audience.

  WaPo

Be proud, my man. The only way this could have been better is if the event had been held at a Trump property instead of a Mariott.

After The Post story published, Internet sleuths went looking, too. They found the image’s origin, tracing it back to an online marketplace Leazott set up to sell shirts and stickers sporting the seal, along with other jokey “resistance” apparel. And the citizens of the Web wanted to buy his stuff.

That website, One Term Donnie, will be raking in the dough now through its merchandise (available here).

But the trolls came, too.

“The worst has been Facebook,” he said, which he hadn’t checked “in like a year.”

“Holy crap at the amount of vile, hateful Facebook messages,” he said. “It’s apparently a personal affront to some people.”

But, Leazott said, he’s the one who gets the last laugh. A photo of Trump in front of his seal is now his computer background, and the person who used it at the event is “either wildly incompetent or the best troll ever — either way, I love them.”

As of Thursday afternoon, Leazott’s shirts were sold out. He said he had to start working with a fulfillment center just to meet the demand.

“It’s cool people are buying this, that’s great and all,” he said. “But I’ve got to be honest, I am so tickled in the most petty way possible that the president of the United States, who I despise, stood up and gave a talk in front of this graphic. Whoever put that up is my absolute hero.”

And ours.