The Rorschach Graffiti

On Facebook, a fellow I’ve known for over a decade posted a link to an article about graffiti with the swastika as the T in Trump and asked someone to justify it.

The papers covering it handily as though this is pro-Trump graffiti, quoting all sorts of anti-Trump people hoping Trump will disavow this:

Philadelphia’s Anti-Defamation League chapter quickly condemned the vandalism, referencing its eerie coinciding with Kristallnacht, a coordinated Nazi attack in 1938 during which hundreds of Jews had their storefronts smashed throughout Germany.

“Swastikas and the Nazi salute send a message of intolerance and hate to the entire community,” Regional Director Nancy Baron said in a statement. “While we view this as an isolated incident, we cannot allow this behavior to become routine. Everyone has a role to play in combating bigotry — we must advocate, educate and investigate until hate is no longer welcome in our society.”

One damn minute, Admiral.

What we have here is a piece of unattributed graffiti comparing Trump to Hitler. The articles present no evidence that the vandals were Trump supporters. NONE.

But of course the vandals must be Trump supporters, because people in the media and on the social media have said so.

Pay no mind to those on the left have equated Trump to Hitler.

Come on, that’s three examples from relatively high profile Internet locations or celebrities. You know it’s been all over your Twitter feed and Facebook feed and everywhere else for six months. “Trump is Hitler!”

Ergo, graffiti comparing Trump to Hitler must be in support of Trump as Hitler. Ergo, somehow.

It’s not just Trump that the left has called Hitler over and over.


Scott Walker is Hitler


George W. Bush is Hitler

Clearly, these protestors and their supporting iconography were not the work of Walker and Bush supporters, but the Trump graffiti is because, what? That was then and this is now?

So we’ve got an incident of graffiti, but clearly it is a symbol that fits into and reinforces a specific narrative. The apex of mid-century American Existentialist thought that sixties thinkers could only dream would become mainstream.

Regardless of the actual realities of the incident, including the vandal and his or her motive. Concrete details are not the point. The narrative and the meme are the point.

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