A tweet from the account of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Friday used language that many observers say conjures up the identified Nazi hate image “1488.”
A publish at the candidate’s professional Twitter account used the numbers 14 and 88 in shut proximity.
Kennedy has now not spoke back to HuffPost’s request for remark or defined the publish in other places as of Friday afternoon. It’s now not transparent whether or not he in my opinion authorized the tweet.
His publish on Twitter (which lately rebranded as X) used to be looking to disgrace President Joe Biden into offering Secret Provider coverage for him. It mentioned presidential applicants had been equipped Secret Provider coverage “since the assassination of my father in 1968.”
He added: “However now not me. Conventional turnaround time for professional forma coverage requests from presidential applicants is 14-days. After 88-days of no reaction and after a number of follow-ups by means of our marketing campaign, the Biden Management simply denied our request.”
“1488” is a identified white supremacist image, consistent with the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Legislation Heart. The “14” within the image is shorthand for the “14 Phrases” slogan this is well-liked by racists around the globe, whilst the “88” stands for “Heil Hitler,” since “H” is the 8th letter of the alphabet.
The Secret Provider’s site states that it’s approved to give protection to “main presidential and vice presidential applicants and their spouses inside 120 days of a normal presidential election.” The election remains to be greater than a 12 months away, which means Kennedy wouldn’t essentially obtain the safety at this level.
HuffPost has reached out to the Secret Provider for remark.
Kennedy has come below hearth for trafficking in antisemitic conspiracy theories. At a contemporary dinner, he falsely mentioned the virus that reasons COVID-19 will have been engineered, that it’s much less destructive to “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese language” (additionally false), and that it’s “centered to assault Caucasians and Black other folks” (false once more). He additionally advised that Holocaust sufferers had it more straightforward than COVID victims.
Social media customers have been fast to note the loaded language in his Friday tweet.