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Obama’s face and mouth; a life-sized poster of Bernie Sanders with Soviet tattoos and diaper “full of free shit”; a billboard-style portrait of Hillary Clinton as a maniacal queen. Sabo – a pseudonym derived from a tank munition called sabot – made his breakthrough in the GOP primaries with a poster of Ted Cruz as a tattooed, muscled convict. It went viral and Cruz’s campaign embraced the bad boy image, though later distanced itself when Sabo was accused of racism. Still, revenues rolled in and Sabo was famous.
primaries, calling him a circus clown who would hand the White House to Clinton. He said the average Trump voter was a “moron” and depicted Trump as “Il douche”, a play on Il Duce, with his hair forming a Mussolini- style helmet. Sabo now says he is “cautiously optimistic” about the president. “The day I came to love Donald Trump was when I saw how hard he was kicking liberals in the teeth.” He trolled inauguration protests around LA’s city hall by posting fake advertisements mimicking the Fox TV show 24, keeping the text “New Day, New Hero” but replacing the star, Corey Hawkins, with Trump, and 24 with 45, a reference to the 45th president. Sabo grew up in Texas and operated tanks in the marines before studying art in LA, then drifted into street art in the 1990s. He says he became disgusted with liberals after they “circled the wagons” to defend Bill Clinton from rape allegations. The left, he said, has mastered cultural and political “dark arts” and “weaponized” Hollywood, the FBI, the IRS, universities and other institutions to promote a nefarious agenda. He also lamented America’s polarization. “The whole climate is sick right now.” Asked if his work contributed to that sickness, Sabo shook his head. “The left are the ones who dehumanize.” Copyright Guardian News & Media Ltd 2017
Photograph: Rory Carroll for the Guardian
He scored another hit during the general election with an image of a grinning skull with yellow hair labeled “The deplorables” – a riff on a Clinton blunder about Donald Trump’s supporters. It earned him $20,000 in a single day and inspired copycats. Ironically, Sabo deplored Trump during the
68 | July 2017
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