GOP congressman and Fox host grossly mischaracterize Nazi symbol that was used in a Trump campaign ad
Written by John Whitehouse
Published
On Fox Business Thursday afternoon, Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) and Fox host Charles Payne discussed Facebook’s decision to take down 88 Trump campaign ads attacking “antifa,” short for anti-fascist activists, that featured an inverted red triangle -- an infamous Nazi symbol used to signify political prisoners.
Reschenthaler alleged that the symbol -- which he did not describe -- was simply antifa’s own emblem. Payne, who had admitted that “news broke as we were going on air so I couldn’t get the details on it,” nevertheless seemed to agree with Reschenthaler, asking, “How hypocritical is this?”
In truth, it was an egregious lie.
The image used is not in any way an “antifa” symbol. Reporters and researchers looking into it have found basically no precedence of antifa using the symbol. Mark Bray, a Rutgers historian and the author of The Anti-Fascist Handbook, told The New York Times that the inverted red triangle was not part of the symbolism of antifa in the U.S.
President Donald Trump’s ad is the first and by far the most prominent result when you Google “inverted red triangle,” for instance. The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement calling the imagery “deeply troubling.”
As my colleague Parker Molloy explained on Twitter, this was always heading toward a “censorship” backlash. It’s now clear that this backlash will include flat-out lies about what was in the ad to begin with.
Like with the use of tear gas on peaceful civilians, it is imperative that people not give in to the obvious lies being told about what we can verify with our own eyes.
Here’s the full segment with Payne and Reschenthaler: