The Amplifier Foundation has commissioned protest art from three progressive activist artists to be distributed “on a massive scale in time for Inauguration Day,” as they seek to “disrupt the rising tide of hate and fear in America” with the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency.
The movement, called “We the People,” is hoping to canvass Washington with the art on January 20 in order to “spark a conversation.” It hopes to advance the divisive narrative that “hate, fear and open racism were normalized during the 2016 presidential campaign.”
The Foundation has started a Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund the placement of full-page ads in the Washington Post “so that people across the capitol [sic] and across the country will be able to carry them into the streets, hang them in windows, or paste them on walls.”
The group also says it will distribute the images “as large placards throughout DC at Metro stops, out of the back of moving vans, at drop spots to be announced in the coming week” via their social media feeds and on January 19 “as free downloads.”
So far, the Kickstarter campaign has generated over $643,000 from more than 9,000 backers since it launched on Tuesday. Unsurprisingly, many of the backers are from ultra-left urban centers like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle and Portland, where Hillary secured an easy victory.
Featured artists include Shepard Fairey, known for his Barack Obama “Hope” poster in 2008, Jessica Sabogal, a feminist muralist, and Ernesto Yerena, who often features indigenous peoples in his work.
According to its Kickstarter promo video, the group claims to be nonpartisan, although it has consistently promoted Democratic and progressive causes.
Moreover, the video primarily features women and minority groups, and says that “We the People” represents the people “who have been historically left out of the national conversation.” What the video conveniently neglects to acknowledge is that our current two-term President is African-American and that the Democratic nominee for president was a woman — but those don’t count, I guess.
Just as Fairey’s famous “Hope” posters disappeared quickly after President Obama’s inauguration, we can assume that this movement will have the same short-lived fate.
