In an attempt to sell President Trump’s invasions of Black-led cities with military troops as being out-of-control, the GOP used stock images of protests claiming that the photos were from Portland protests and then tried to clean it up claiming it was just a meme.
On Sunday, the Oregon Republican Party posted images on all of their social media including Facebook, Instagram, and X claiming that the images were from Portland protests.
“President Trump deploys 300 California National Guard troops to Portland,” it claimed, pairing the images with chaotic street scenes, the Daily Beast reports.
The issue was that hours after the post went up, a federal judge blocked Trump from sending in troops, which means that photo couldn’t have happened. And, the picture wasn’t even taken in Portland—or the U.S.
“Rather, it was a composite of two stock shots. One was a 2008 photo of South American riot police, with the big giveaway that officers were holding shields with “Policia,” the Spanish word for police, on them,” the Daily Beast reports.
The other photo used was from 2017 taken by a Brazilian photographer showing a protest that was a stock image in a “free image library, featuring a crowd of demonstrators lighting up the night sky with red flares.”
The Guardian took to X to call out the fake photos, to which the Oregon Republican Party responded:
“We’re not reporters, just bad memers.” The Daily Beast notes that the post appears to have been removed.
The Trump administration has claimed that Portland is a “war zone” both on air and in press releases, but local reporting has shown that protests outside ICE’s Portland office have been small.
The Oregon GOP did not explain to the Guardian whether the image they used was created or if they pulled it from another site, nor did they address why they used a false image to justify military deployment that courts have denied.
