The North Carolina Republican Party on Saturday came under fire for a Star Wars-themed post meant to celebrate the "May the Fourth" internet holiday and promote Donald Trump.
The official account of the North Carolina Republican Party on X, formerly known as Twitter, posted an image showing Trump holding a lightsaber. The text says, "May the Fourth Be With You," which is a play on the Star Wars line, "May the force be with you."
The problem, as social media users were quick to point out, is that the ex-president was shown with a red lightsaber. According to Vox, "Sith usually use red-hued" lightsabers, such as the one Darth Vader wields.
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National security attorney Bradley Moss wondered if the state GOP outpost was ignorant.
"You gave him... a red lightsaber? Do you know anything?" he asked Saturday.
Democrat Harry Sisson said, "You know the dudes who have the red lightsabers are the bad guys, right? Didn’t watch the movie I guess?"
@Venti__Poet chimed in in response to the post, "At least you know he is on the dark side."
@cj_bria said, "So, he’s a Sith Lord? Sounds about right!"
User Nick Anderson, @NickAnderson217, had a slightly different take from others.
"People are too hung up on the fact it's red... y'all why did they make his saber so small?" Anderson asked.
One user, @t3hrobzlqx, looked into things a bit.
"Something about this irked me, so I did some research. First of all, the fact that they gave him a Red Lightsaber for this while Red has traditionally been associated with the Sith and the Empire should tell you that either the person who created this meme doesn't know a thing about Star Wars, or that they know exactly what they're doing and somehow think that the Sith/Empire are the good guys," they wrote. "Second, I was curious about whose Saber they gave him because it didn't explicitly remind me of anyone's saber. I had to Reverse Image search it, but I found that this is a design from one of the many Lightsaber Storefronts online, that doesn't belong to any on-screen character from the series. The pictures they use even have the blade color as Blue, so they straight up changed it to Red. I know that 'Republicans are Red (as are Maga hats) and Democrats are Blue,' but they could have taken from literally an entire rainbow of colors to evoke 'Oh, it's a lightsaber,' but they insisted on making his lightsaber Red."
They concluded:
"As a Star Wars fan, I frankly find this cheap attempt to gain my vote more insulting than anything that Star Wars fans have ever taken issue with. This is probably the most embarrassing cash-in I've ever seen, and I've ACTUALLY WATCHED the Star Wars Holiday Special in its entirety, unironically, multiple times."
