Trump administration and critics wage a battle of images on National Mall : NPR
A satirical statue of President Trump and late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was erected in front of the U.S. Capitol in February. The temporary statue attracted huge crowds who amplified the image by posting it on social media. The statue is a play on the iconic scene from the film Titanic and is called “King of the World”.
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WASHINGTON – A propaganda war is taking place on the National Mall between the Trump administration and its detractors. The administration has hung giant banners bearing the likeness of President Trump on several federal buildings. His name now adorns both the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the American Institute of Peace.
Meanwhile, an anonymous group called Secret Handshake has erected satirical Trump statues and artwork that focuses on everything from the president’s friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to Trump’s taste for marble and gold leaf.
Another group, the Save America Movement, put posters on fences and walls mocking members of Trump’s cabinet. One shows a photo of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and says, “Fascism is not pretty.” Another shows Attorney General Pam Bondi and reads “Epstein Queen.”
The Save America Movement, a nonprofit organization, has put up posters around Washington, DC. This mocks Attorney General Pam Bondi for her management of the Epstein files.
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Save America Movement/Save America Movement
A man poses for a photograph with a gold-painted faux marble toilet sculpture titled “A Throne Fit for a King” that was installed March 31 near the Lincoln Memorial. The Secret Handshake, an artist collective, erected the statue, which mocks President Trump’s renovation of the White House bathroom adjoining the Lincoln Bedroom, a project that drew criticism for taking place during a government shutdown.
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“We think ridicule is a very important tool in the opposition’s toolbox to fight authoritarianism,” said Mary Corcoran, who leads the Save America Movement, a nonprofit.
Corcoran adds that she doesn’t consider this a fair fight “Because they use taxpayers’ money to finance their propaganda, and we don’t.”
The White House rejects criticism that the president is reshaping the National Mall in his image and using federal buildings for self-aggrandizement.
Workers hung this banner in February at the Justice Ministry headquarters. Visitors and scholars compare it to political iconography seen in authoritarian states like China and the former Soviet Union.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
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“President Trump is focused on saving our country, not giving recognition,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle told NPR via email. “Many organizations are free to share their opinions publicly, even if they have no basis in reality.”
THE National Mall is known as America’s front yard and includes monuments and museums designed to unify the nation and celebrate democracy.
Last month, a gold-painted statue depicting Trump holding Epstein’s outstretched arms on the bow of a ship as if they were Jack and Rose on the Titanic attracted a steady stream of people who laughed and posed in front of it for photos.
Not everyone was amused.
“It’s a gross interpretation of our president,” said Andi Lynn Helmy, a high school student from Jacksonville, Florida. “Even if you don’t agree with his policies…I think it’s just an incredibly disrespectful thing.”
The battle of images playing out on the National Mall has given rise to some remarkable juxtapositions. Among them, this giant banner of President Trump, hanging at the Department of Labor. In the foreground are banners unfurled by the anonymous group Secret Handshake, which read “Make America Safe Again” and highlight the president’s friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein’s banners are a rebuttal to a Trump banner hanging at the Justice Department that also reads “Make America Safe Again.”
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Other visitors expressed outrage at the president’s face as he stared at the banners of the Department of Labor, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Justice. They compared it to images of personalized rule seen in the People’s Republic of China during the era of Chairman Mao Tse-tung and in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.
“I just feel like he’s sort of presenting himself as the king of America,” said Luke Price, a freshman at the University of Vermont. “I just don’t think that’s what we’re all about. America is a democracy, not a dictatorship.”
