This junior varsity photoshop of a “Trump fighter jet” shooting down a “Fox News passenger plane” picked up speed in today’s social media churn. Supporters sharing this seem to be ready for an America that uses Russian war machines to kill newspeople Something something free trade, I guess?
The originator of the image appears to be @FrenchForTrump; a “French American Creative Director” who speaks four languages, if you take his Twitter bio at face value. But there must be a lot of re-uploading going on, because I’ve seen this ominous illustration way too many times already.
Anyway, I figured there might be a few folks posting, pasting and retweeting this image that would like to know this “Trump Jet” is a Russian Su-27, actually built to battle against Americans in F-14 Tomcats and F-15 Eagles during the Cold War.
The Su-27 looks a little like both of those iconic U.S. jets—as in it’s in the shape of a plane, which is probably where the confusion came from.
Or maybe use of the Russian jet was intentional! Channeling the fictional sinister politician Frank Underwood who, as our resident military expert and apparent House Of Cards nerd explained, used the Su-27 in a fake campaign ad for the show.
I would use this opportunity to remind readers about the time Trump mistakenly depicted Russian veterans as American, or the time he wanted us to think Morocco was Mexico. But since this goofy image was whipped up in five minutes on MS paint and not distributed by the official Trump campaign, I will decline.
Don’t forget to double-check what you RT!
Contact the author at andrew@jalopnik.com.