Billboards, newspaper ads from conservative group mock progressive ideals
The latest iteration of a poster campaign that conservative groups have been running in the past week began making headlines Wednesday as its makers responded to recent events in Charlottesville, Va., with the new poster that features President Trump and former GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz.
Progressive groups have been circulating the new posters, which they say echo the messages of the far-right fringe groups featured in the original campaign, for several months.
On Tuesday, CNN reported that the first poster was the only one of its kind to be posted by right-wing groups since the violence in Charlottesville.
The two-minute video at the top of the new posters features two of the most prominent figures from the far-right movement, including Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who was given the title of the “chief of the alt-right” at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
Spencer, who is featured on the poster in both the past and present, told CNN that the message on the new poster “refers to Hillary Clinton.”
“She’s the one that is not our main focus right now,” he said. “The left wing, Hillary Clinton, the media, have become so powerful, and they are not going to accept their defeat. They know that they can’t win.”
Progressive groups have said that the poster was not meant to be partisan in nature.
“Our posters are meant to be a counterpoint to the outright lies these white supremacists spew, but also to the right-wing media propaganda that has become so normalized in this election cycle,” one of the organizers said in an email to HuffPost.
Another poster, which portrays Trump and Cruz with the slogan “Drain the Swamp,” was posted at the same time as the Spencer poster and features Trump and Cruz on the front, while the third features Trump and Cruz on the back along with a quote from Trump as well as a banner that reads, “Resist” as well as a picture of a
