NRA Tries To Use a Feminist Icon to Defend Its Evil New Ad

The National Rifle Association is attempting to defend an offensive new ad that all but calls for a second Civil War by enlisting none other than World War II-era feminist icon Rosie the Riveter.

The gun lobby group tweeted an image of Rosie in a recent NRA tweet that also shouted out its spokeswoman, Dana Loesch, a conservative media personality who appeared in the incendiary video.

The tweet also features the hashtag, #ClenchedFistOfTruth, a phrase that first appeared in Loesch’s tirade for the NRA.

If you’re still wondering why everyone is so outraged by the ad, here’s a full transcript:

They use their media to assassinate real news. They use their schools to teach children that their president is another Hitler. They use their movie stars and singers and award shows to repeat their narrative over and over again. And then they use their ex-president to endorse the resistance. All to make them march, make them protest, make them scream racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia and smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports, bully and terrorize the law abiding — until the only option left is for the police to do their jobs and stop the madness. And when that happens, they’ll use it as an excuse for their outrage.

The only way we stop this, the only way we save our country and our freedom is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth. I’m the National Rifle Association of America and I’m freedom’s safest place.

Loesch recently took to Twitter to defend the controversial ad, implying that the NRA was simply subverting “leftist imagery.”

It’s a continuation of a series of cynical, idiotic, and confusing arguments, as Anna Merlan noted in a piece from Jezebel:

This is the new face of right-wing media: managing to imply, in the same confused breath, that leftists are violent, menacing, and over-sensitive. Meanwhile, brave right-wing pundits are patriotic, strong, and unbothered by PC rhetoric—but they’re also totally about to sue your ass off for calling them names. Congratulations to Dana Loesch for so perfectly embodying our times, and making a quick buck doing it.

Of course, conservative personalities appropriating progressive images and languages—particularly those related to feminism—is par for the course in 2017 (Hi, Ivanka Trump). But NRA, girl, I gotta say, this is some particularly weak shit.