Right-wing Provo provocateur painter Jon McNaughton has a new artwork for sale — this time, supporting President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency over conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The artist worked some new faces into his lineup of progressive enemies, including freshman Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, alongside such familiar favorites as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama.
McNaughton’s latest painting, “National Emergency,” depicts Trump in a presidential bomber jacket, “with his head bowed contemplating the state of our border situation,” according to McNaughton’s description of the painting on his website. He’s looking down at a lost doll, “left behind by a little girl forced to make the dangerous journey.”
Over Trump’s shoulder, across the border, is a horde of immigrants seeking to cross into the United States, waving the flag of Honduras. But it’s the action McNaughton paints on this side of the border that’s the most confrontational.
McNaughton depicts 11 prominent Democratic and progressive politicians standing on a tattered American flag while holding the flags of Mexico, China, the European Union, Iran, the United Nations, Palestine, and the states of New York and California.
“I’m sick of how they trample our flag and do not seek America’s interests first,” McNaughton wrote, calling them “traitors to this country, in most cases … more loyal to whichever country, lobbyist, corporation, or special interest group that will keep them in office and line their bank accounts.”
(Kim Raff | The Washington Post) After the 2016 election, Jon McNaughton's paintings gained a hero in Donald Trump instead of just a villain in Barack Obama.
The 11 progressives in the painting are, from left to right:
• Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
• Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.
• Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.
• Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
• Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
• Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
• Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Caif.
• Former Secretary of State Hlllary Clinton.
• Former President Barack Obama.
Obama and Clinton have appeared in several of McNaughton’s past images; most famously, McNaughton painted an image of Obama holding a copy of the U.S. Constitution on fire. Sanders and Schumer were shown chasing Trump in his football-themed “All-American Trump,” which was released just after the 2018 midterm elections that gave control of the House to the Democrats and brought in Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Omar, among other new progressive faces.
(Photo courtesy Jon McNaughton) Prints of "All-American Trump" are currently for sale at jonmcnaughton.com.
On McNaughton’s Facebook page, fans are reacting to the new image with such comments as “your paintings leave me breathless with their raw truth,” “beautiful, sad, and frustrating at [the] same time" and “God guides your hand, and gives you remarkable understanding.”
Detractors made fun of McNaughton’s work online. Responses on Twitter included “must be nice to live in an alternative universe,” “what this painting lacks in subtlety it makes up for with its lack of subtlety” and “this is so gross.”
Others made their commentary visual by altering the image. The most widely shared revision had Trump holding a big cheeseburger, and added several pounds to his waistline.
Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri, on Twitter, commented on the mockery: “Jon McNaughton should not have worded his wish that ‘one day everyone on Twitter will rush to own all my paintings’ so specifically.”
Copies of “National Emergency” are available on McNaughton’s website, at prices ranging from $29 for a 10-inch-by-15-inch lithograph to $705 for a limited-edition 30-inch-by-45-inch giclee print.
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