One of the biggest propagandists of the 2008 election in America was an artist named Shepard Fairey. (Don't laugh, that's a real name.) If you aren't sure, or maybe have forgotten, who Fairey is, he is the artist behind the Obama 'Hope' poster. You remember the one:
Anyone who feels like they’re not getting any solid ideas about how to tackle the problems around race from the current leadership should check out what Obama has to say. https://t.co/UsxI48th1l pic.twitter.com/zl3IQ7gPtd
— Shepard Fairey (@OBEYGIANT) June 14, 2020
The poster was widely mocked at the time -- and has become more of a meme than anything else over the past 16 years, but whatever you want to say about it (it looks like it's supposed to be viewed with 3-D glasses to us), you can't argue that it was an effective piece of agitprop at the time.
Whether it may have helped Obama or not, one thing is sure: it helped Fairey's career tremendously. He has made new variations on this theme for everyone from Ruth Bader Ginsberg to Joe Biden (no, seriously, Joe Biden).
With the 2024 election just a few months away, Fairey must have decided it was time to try to cash in again. Last night, he debuted a new poster for Kamala Harris. It's basically the same derivative concept, but instead of 'Hope,' this one reads 'Forward.' Take a look:
#KamalaHarrisForward I believe VP Kamala Harris and her VP pick Tim Walz are our best chance to move forward. They are our best chance to push back on encroaching fascism and threats to democracy, and our best chance for creating the world we all desire and deserve. Politics is… pic.twitter.com/8tTuLfIbEw
— Shepard Fairey (@OBEYGIANT) August 15, 2024
LOL. And they say that Trump supporters are in a cult.
But we love how Fairey describes his thought process behind developing pretty much the same poster he did 16 years ago. It's about fighting 'fascism' and 'threats to democracy.'
SBlah, blah, blah. Spare us, please.
Here is the rest of his tweet that accompanied the poster debut:
Politics is messy... but messy is no excuse for checking out. Messy is the work and the work can be joyful. Messy is what it takes to get through the daunting mess in pursuit of a better future. But we only win if we show up. FULL STATEMENT: https://obeygiant.com/kamala-harris-forward/
Yeah, we won't be reading that full statement, thank you very much, Leni Riefenstahl.
But it's good to hear that you are so 'joyful.' (We swear to God, if any leftist ever showed an ounce of original thinking, we might die from shock.)
Unfortunately for Fairey, the only problem with trying to repeat the same propaganda twice is that now, almost a generation later, people are on to him ... and on to Harris.
Forward towards Communism, just like Lenin explained. https://t.co/SAGrfJj2wu
— James Lindsay, anti-Communist (@ConceptualJames) August 16, 2024
The poster does bear a certain resemblance to Lenin staring off into the future of price controls, bread lines, and mass murder, doesn't it?
He captured the moment she first beheld an oiled-up Montel Williams wearing nothing but some strategically placed payday loan documents. https://t.co/TrKZrrWk2n
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) August 16, 2024
Oh, snap. (Hey, Col. Schlichter said it, not us.)
Marxist. https://t.co/yaMV6hfgFL
— Dean Cain (@RealDeanCain) August 16, 2024
Marxist idolatry, to be more precise.
She looks white... WAIT! Is she white now??? https://t.co/TVHQVg6GlG
— G (@TCC_Grouchy) August 16, 2024
Hey, that's a good question. Is Fairey trying to whitewash Harris's race (whatever that race may be on any given day)?
A lot of people are desperate to recreate the ‘08 magic, and I think this is the best and saddest example of that https://t.co/xHbO50hfru
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) August 16, 2024
Obama may have been a horrible President who is still trying to 'fundamentally transform America,' but at least he had a message, speaking talent, and a functioning brain.
We don't think it's going to work again with Harris and her eloquent speeches about 'the passage of time.'
It was also Obama’s theme in 2012. https://t.co/zYYFa2v0gv pic.twitter.com/x0l8heTrzs
— e-beth (@ebeth360) August 16, 2024
Oh, we forgot about that. Not only is Harris stealing many of her ideas this year from Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, but her apparatchiks are also copying Obama's second campaign slogan.
Kamala’s policy
— LiveLife 🇺🇸 (@livelifekaye) August 16, 2024
Kamala’s Oakland California
Stop embarrassing yourself nothing about them is moving forward. pic.twitter.com/4wdopKkJbQ
We want to give Fairey a Bart Simpson award at least for trying to copy himself and manufacture a completely fabricated energy behind Harris.
The best part about Fairey's new/old poster though was the opportunity it gave Twitter to mock it.
And mock it Twitter did.
Same vibes pic.twitter.com/qs2smN4HcV
— Angie G (@MomAngtrades) August 16, 2024
We can't believe there are still ignorant Americans who love to wear the t-shirt of a murderous Marxist, but that's the left for you.
Onama scum of the earth. Commie pos right here. pic.twitter.com/N1lQGGL4Xc
— MrDirt (@MrDirt66) August 16, 2024
— James Lindsay, anti-Communist (@ConceptualJames) August 16, 2024
The echoes of Mao's Cultural Revolution run strong in the Harris campaign.
— Ruby Tumbleweeds Badger (@RubyVonBadger) August 16, 2024
Yikes. This reminds of of Captain Quint's famous speech about sharks from Jaws: 'Lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye...'
— mallen2024 (@mallen20243) August 16, 2024
Mine is better 💅🏽💅🏽💅🏽 pic.twitter.com/mWZZx5o7uY
— Jayroo (@jayroo69) August 16, 2024
LOL. Yes, we agree. That one is much better.
https://t.co/8xy1Yg7a6n pic.twitter.com/V32Z6r2p3Z
— Yuri Bezmenov's Ghost (@Ne_pas_couvrir) August 16, 2024
That one is both better and more accurate for Harris and her planned policies.
Any similarities are pure coincidence. https://t.co/aY0scS6joH pic.twitter.com/HQJP3ycZal
— Scatbug Redux (@scatbug1) August 16, 2024
It begins... #KamalaHarris2024 https://t.co/kFnyRe0PEG pic.twitter.com/PmKcaoGoG3
— Scribe Light (@Scribe_Light) August 16, 2024
HAHAHAHA.
Did Willie Brown leave that? https://t.co/WjoFwWqm2H pic.twitter.com/NHCwNqoCv5
— Jared A. Chambers 🇺🇲 (@C4CEO) August 15, 2024
Eep. Okay, moving on ...
There, I fixed it. (Internet, you know what to do)#ForWar @OBEYGIANT pic.twitter.com/eSwORl3hhQ
— The Duke Report (@thedukereport) August 15, 2024
Man, Twitter was relentless. We imagine people are tired of the relentless gaslighting.
— Shawn Taylor music (@Taylormusic67) August 16, 2024
That one is perfect. Chef's kiss.
How about one more Communist parallel?
— Howard Notelling (@BluegrassPundit) August 16, 2024
There it is.
We should also remember that 'Hope' and 'Forward' aren't Fairey's only ideas. He also created this one:
Words coming LITERALLY from the guy who created the "OBEY" signs.
— Isaiah L. Carter (@IsaiahLCarter) August 16, 2024
You ain't sh*t but a Communist weirdo, and so is Kamala. https://t.co/JbSGnPB4oi pic.twitter.com/xioCcz0EBT
Accurate on both counts.
We're sure these posters will be all over Chicago next week for the DNC. But we're equally sure that, this time around, they won't affect anyone who wasn't already 100 percent a Kamala Harris voter.
But Shepard Fairey will at least be able to market his propaganda to them. We wonder if he will hypocritically charge people for the reprints.
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