Fox News host Sean Hannity was the talk of Twitter due to a tweet he posted Monday evening seeking a reaction from liberals to a painting of Donald Trump by a conservative artist.
While Hannity probably anticipated that he wouldn’t get a friendly response from liberals, the exact nature of the response might have surprised him.
Hannity tweeted that “The ‘left’ loves art, and especially taxpayer-funded art that is ‘provocative’. Let’s get their reaction to this.” “This” being a painting by right-wing artist Jon McNaughton depicting Trump standing in a football stadium holding a torn up American flag.
https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/968300282533892096
Here’s a look at the whole painting, dubbed “Respect the Flag”:
With the painting being what it is, the response was probably about what you would expect: it instantly became a meme, with folks echoing what Hannity tweeted with all kinds of silly images put in place of the flag painting — the joke being that the replacement images are equally as goofy as the painting Hannity tweeted. Here’s a sampling of that particular genre of reply:
https://twitter.com/CarlBeijer/status/968322420514926595
https://twitter.com/BillCorbett/status/968449038277324800
The “left” loves art, and especially taxpayer funded art that is “provocative”. Let’s get their reaction to this. pic.twitter.com/FGHxr7GH4T
— scrimjab ? (@scrimjab) February 27, 2018
https://twitter.com/suzuhiggins/status/968323795353309185
The “left” loves art, and especially taxpayer funded art that is “provocative”. Let’s get their reaction to this. pic.twitter.com/Rqsv34gJkP
— J Mack (@jennwmack) February 27, 2018
The “left” loves art, and especially taxpayer funded art that is “provocative”. Let’s get their reaction to this. pic.twitter.com/BA0u2Yp306
— BUM CHILLUPS AKA SPENCER HALL (@edsbs) February 27, 2018
https://twitter.com/mmegannnolan/status/968447862383235072
The “left” loves art, and especially taxpayer funded art that is “provocative”. Let’s get their reaction to this. pic.twitter.com/nJDzNQH8AR
— Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) February 27, 2018
https://twitter.com/vs_cointelpro/status/968330909907849223
Note that some examples of this meme are very NSFW.
It’s a fascinating time to publicize a painting like this, which is an attempt to canonize Trump for speaking out against NFL players who knelt during the national anthem during the past couple seasons in order to protest police violence. Football season has been over for several weeks, and by the end of the season the chatter about the protests had died down as the protests themselves became infrequent over the course of the season.
Coming from a conservative figure like Hannity, it could very well be an attempt to distract from the current political conversation, which has been dominated by calls for stricter gun laws in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. That discussion has been led by survivors of the shooting themselves, and TV news has been going on about the issue non-stop for nearly two weeks now.