After using Mount Rushmore as a backdrop for a dark Independence Day eve speech that cast his political enemies as “godless” communists, the president popped on Truth Social to post memes of two prominent Democrats as Pee-wee Herman and the gap-toothed mascot for Mad magazine.
Trump has repeatedly compared Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia to Pee-wee and James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas, as Alfred E. Neuman.
In the early morning hours of the Fourth of July, in the middle of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations, Trump posted a doctored image of Talarico with a blacked-out space between his two front teeth to look like the Mad magazine character.
“Isn’t it strange, the Dumocrats are running a man in Texas who looks virtually identical to Alfred E. Neuman, of MAD Magazine fame and, in Georgia, they’re running someone who looks like a twin to the Late, Great, Pee-wee Herman,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in June.
“With these two horrible Political Candidates, I don’t know if there’s a genetic tree, but it certainly is close! What do you think?” he added.
The president, using decades-old references to target Democratic opponents, now appears to be recycling insults. He had previously compared former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to the Mad magazine character.
Recent polling suggests a tight race between Talarico and Republican nominee Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued Texas attorney general. Ossoff, who was first elected in 2020, is on track to beat Republican Rep. Mike Collins.
Trump has cast upcoming midterm elections in apocalyptic terms and baselessly characterized Democratic candidates and a new wave of progressive challengers as “communists” who imperil the fate of the nation while also portraying them as cartoon characters.
“Communism is the exact opposite of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Trump said from Mount Rushmore on Thursday night. “It’s death, tyranny and the pursuit of evil.”
The president returned to the White House shortly after 4 a.m. Saturday morning.
Paxton has also smeared Talarico as “Low-T,” or low testosterone, in an apparent attempt to question his masculinity using right-wing stereotypes.
Talarico has brushed the insults aside.
“I honestly get the sense that people across the spectrum, across the state are tired of this ‘politics as professional wrestling,’ right? You got these old guys lathered up in their fake tan, throwing corny nicknames at each other,” Talarico recently told MS NOW.
“What people are hungry for is elected officials who are going to do the work, who are going to bring both parties together and pass legislation that’s actually going to make their lives easier and better and less stressful,” he said. “And I’m putting my money on that. I really am.”
