President Donald Trump's 2020 reelection campaign is under fire for its use of a symbol in a Facebook ad stoking fears regarding Antifa.
The ad used an upside down red triangle, which many pointed out was used in Nazi concentration camps in the 20th century to denote political prisoners and those who hid Jews from Nazis.
Check out the ad below.
@HelenKennedy/Twitter
Antifa is a leaderless movement of largely peaceful antifascist protestors, often falsely painted by Republican leaders as an organized group of violent anarchists.
Unlike the Ku Klux Klan or the Proud Boys, Trump declares Antifa a domestic terror cell—as does the ad brandishing a Nazi symbol:
"Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups are running through our streets and causing absolute mayhem. They are DESTROYING our cities and rioting—it's absolute madness."
The campaign faced backlash when images started circulating on Twitter.
After outcry, the symbols in the ads were changed.
Facebook took down the 88 ads featuring the symbol, but the Trump campaign still attempted to defend it.
The campaign claimed that the upside down red triangle was "widely used" by Antifa and that it was an emoji (there is also a red circle, red square, and red right side up triangle emoji).
The assertion that it was "widely used" was questionable at best.
Reporters asked the campaign where they'd seen the "widely used" symbol before, but could only come up with an obscure design by a Spain-based user of the tee shirt website Spreadshirt.
People mocked the campaign for stumbling attempts at backtracking.
The ads made nearly one million impressions before the symbol was removed.
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