"Keep Iowa Great" Hat Flight Photograph

Submission 13,554

Part of a series on 2020 Iowa Democratic Caucus. [View Related Entries]

About

"Keep Iowa Great" Hat Flight Photograph is an image macro featuring members of President Donald Trump's 2020 re-election campaign team wearing red MAGA hats that read "Keep Iowa Great." The image, taken as a troll towards the 2020 Iowa Caucuses. In response to the photograph, many focused on the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, who was not seated in a proper seat but rather crouching in the center aisle.

Origin

On February 4th, 2020, President Donald Trump's director of communications for the 2020 re-election campaign tweeted ^[1] the photograph. He captioned the image, "@TeamTrump headed home after CRUSHING it in Iowa. Record turnout for an incumbent president. So much winning. Didn’t have time to pay attention, so how’d it go for the Democrats? Everything go off without a hitch?" The tweet received more than 3,000 likes and 760 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below).

Spread

Following the release of the image, many online began making jokes about the participants, focusing primarily on Ben Carson, the only visible black person in the photograph. Journalist Oliver Willis tweeted,^[2] "… and starring ben carson as 'the black one.'" Within 24 hours, the tweet received more than 6,100 likes and 1,100 retweets (shown below, left).

Twitter^[4] user @mskristinawong tweeted, "'If we make BEN CARSON awkwardly stand squat in the aisle, it will make it less obvious that everyone on this bus is white.'" The tweet received more than 10,000 likes and 2,300 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below, center).

That day, former U.S. senator Claire McCaskill tweeted,^[3] "One of these things is not like the others. Hint: they made him squat in the aisle so he was visible." The tweet received more than 11,000 likes and 2,400 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below, right).

President Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., defended the photograph on Twitter, taking offense to McCaskill's tweet.^[5] The post received more than 124,000 likes and 34,000 retweets. He followed the tweet by posting a picture of first-class seats and writing, "In case anyone was wondering where Ben Carson’s seat was on the Team Trump plane – just check First Class top left. Thanks for playing Claire" (shown below).

Several media outlets reported on the photograph, including Mashable, ^[6] The Daily Dot, ^[7] Complex,^[8] HuffPost^[9] and more.