Weeks after Facebook removed Donald Trump re-election ads that appeared to include a Nazi symbol, critics on social media say the president’s campaign is at it again.
This time, a T-shirt being sold by the campaign features an image that’s eerily similar to the national insignia of Adolf Hitler’s Germany. However, the campaign is dismissing those allegations as “moronic.”
Newsweek reports: Twitter users say that the position of the eagle is uncomfortably close to the national insignia of Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler ordered a stylized eagle combined with the Nazi swastika to become the national emblem, which can be referred to as the Reichsadler or the Nazi eagle. It features the bird looking to its right with its wings spread, and its talons holding a wreath with a Nazi swastika inside. After World War Two, the imagery was adopted by neo-Nazis and other white supremacists worldwide, according to the Anti Defamation League. The eagle has been an American symbol for more than two centuries but the version designed in 1782 has an olive branch in its right talon representing peace and a scroll in its beak with the motto E Pluribus Unum, meaning “one out of many.”
More from the Daily Caller: The Trump campaign dismissed the allegations as “moronic” in a statement to the Daily Caller and pointed to a long American legacy of using the bald eagle to represent the country. Bend the Arc: Jewish Action circulated the images Wednesday morning, writing “The President of the United States is campaigning for reelection with a Nazi symbol. Again. On the left: an official Trump/Pence ‘America First’ tee. On the right; the Iron Eagle, the official symbol of the Nazi party.” … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) lists the Nazi Eagle as a hate symbol based off the German coat of arms, but later “appropriated by neo-Nazis and other white supremacists worldwide” after World War II. ADL writes that “the symbol originally featured an eagle clutching a swastika, but many variations replace the swastika with some other hate symbol, such as SS bolts or a Celtic Cross. Occasionally, extremists will leave the circle blank where the swastika normally would appear; this seems to be more common in countries where the swastika is prohibited.”
