This is too wildly specific to be an accident. Like, they did not just happen to use the same symbol to demonize leftists that Nazis used. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/18/trump-campaign-runs-ads-with-marking-once-used-by-nazis-designate-political-prisoners/

So, as folks note, the was run 88 times. This is a deliberate troll. My guess is the Trump campaign thinks it helps them to have progressives calling them "Nazis", and so they deliberately do Nazi shit to provoke that reaction. https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-let-trump-campaign-run-ads-inverted-red-triangle-infamous-nazi-symbol

My guess is the calculus is this: When the left calls Trump a "Nazi", that hurts them, because people think they're overreacting and hysterical and political correctness etc. etc. etc. So in order to get progressives to call them "Nazis", they do deliberate Nazi shit.

But of course, this presents the same problem as "ironic" racism. It's still racism! They are still doing Nazi shit, because they want to do Nazi shit, even if they have some 11th level chess rationale for it.

But what is wild is there is no reason to do Nazi shit. Plenty of fascist governments have risen and fallen without being all Heil Hitler about it. If anything, fascism is much easier to sell if people can convince themselves it's not actually fascism, much less Nazism.

Yeah, for whatever reason, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Miller seem to be pushing overtly Nazi shit into stuff, and the rest of the Trump camp is going with it (rather than inventing a more American fascist aesthetic) because of the lib-triggering fun. https://twitter.com/jessicaschulb/status/1247234076718686210

This is like the Tulsa/Juneteenth troll. They did something so wildly racist that they suspected most people would be skeptical that anyone would be so racist and assume that liberals getting angry were "overreacting". But that time, it backfired.

FYI, this strategy that they're employing isn't some genius stuff. They cribbed it off 4chan and Gamergate, which has spent years performing racist and sexist provocations in order to get angry reactions and then playing dumb and claiming liberals are just overreactors.

Also, the Trump camp really does think it helped them when Hillary Clinton called the white supremacist Trump supporters "deplorables", which is why they immediately adopted it as a nickname and an ethos. This is more of the same.

These kinds of trolling tactics, like all good con artistry, relies on exploiting the egos of smart people. They know smart people will be too eager to believe Trump and his team are too dumb to do this, and so will convince themselves it’s not happening.

And yes, picking stuff that a lot of people don't know about (red triangles, Juneteenth) is part of the troll. The point is so that when liberals get angry, the marks for the con go, "Well, I don't know what Juneteenth is, so it's silly to think Trump could."

That helps fuel the narrative of Trumpian innocence/liberal overreaction. It is also literally what gaslighters do. They deliberately do crazy shit to make their victims react, and then say, "Gosh, no one could actually do (crazy shit) so she must be crazy."

Plausible deniability is built into the troll. It’s obscure enough that only the Trumpers and their targets pick up on it and mainstream journalists assume it must be coincidence. It’s like pinching your sister when mom isn’t looking and acting innocent when she protests.

It's clear they thought that was how it would work with the Juneteenth troll. The holiday is HUGE in Texas and Oklahoma and not obscure at all. Like grocery stores have sales for it and shit.

But they (correctly) knew that alot of chin-stroking coastal white liberals and journalists would say, "It's hardly likely that Trump knows what Juneteenth is, because I don't." They make very good marks for this con, because this con plays right into their egos.

But people in the area, especially black people, would read the insult loud and clear, because to them, Juneteenth is not at all obscure. Trump's people are dumb about a lot of things, but they are expert trolls and gaslighters and con artists.

It didn't work this time, probably because we're in a moment where people are reckoning with the fact that a lot of bad people have gotten away with a lot of bad stuff for a long time by claiming black people are just imagining racism.