Is Donald Trump’s campaign really putting swastikas on South Carolina campaign signs?

The word “fascist” has been thrown around so much that it’s lost almost all its meaning, which makes it all the more annoying when an actual fascist turns up and you need a word to describe them. In related news, we are now a week away from an election in which there’s a real chance that Donald Trump will once again be elected president.

In this final week of campaigning, both sides of the political spectrum are using every weapon in their arsenal to attack the other. It’s a familiar story: Republicans are calling Democrats “communists” and Democrats are calling Republicans Nazis. But, at least in South Carolina, some campaign signs indicate the “Nazi” jibe might have some weight to it.

In Barnwell, South Carolina, Donald Trump campaign signs have been spotted sporting a swastika with a “T” in the middle, with the sign explaining that it was “paid for by Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee. A joint fundraising committee composed of and authorized by Donald J. Trump for President 2024, Inc., and Save America. DonaldJTrump.com.”

The sign was first posted in the private Facebook group South Carolina Women for Harris Walz by Elizabeth Grushkowsky, who captioned it:

“I’m so sorry this is upsetting material. I don’t know who this needs to be sent to. The Barnwell County Sheriff has already been made aware of the sign.”

So what’s going on here? Is this the final “mask off” moment for Trump or is something sneakier afoot?

I did Nazi this coming

As confirmed by Snopes, the Trump campaign does not sell or supply any campaign materials featuring a swastika. This means this sign has either been altered or is an entirely new unofficial sign created by persons unknown.

As I see it, there are two broad possibilities here. One is the rather depressing fact that recent years have seen fascism vastly increase in popularity. Over on X – The Everything App, videos of Adolf Hitler speeches, open Nazi iconography, and caricatures that could have been torn from the pages of Der Stürmer are widely posted without moderation (wow, thanks Elon…).

Whoever’s responsible for the swastika sign may see this as testing the waters. After all, if a small swastika logo on a Trump sign can be tolerated, perhaps they can sneak in more Nazi iconography elsewhere?

The other option is that the person responsible for the sign is a disgruntled Democrat who wants to make the Trump campaign look bad. Many elections feature some kind of hoax, for example the Oct. 2008 Ashley Todd ‘mugging,’ where a John McCain volunteer claimed that she’d been robbed by four Black men who’d carved a “B” on her cheek and told her “you are going to be a Barack supporter.” After the story went national, Todd admitted she’d made it up and was charged and convicted of filing a false police report.

Current Harris campaign messaging is that Trump is a uniquely dangerous candidate and will drag the United States into a dystopian fascist nightmare, so what better way to ‘prove’ that than producing fake campaign material featuring swastikas?

Ultimately, we cannot know the exact truth, and unless someone admits to making the sign, it’s unlikely we’ll ever get an explanation. But in the run-up to an intensely emotionally charged election day, just remember not to take every story you hear at face value.