A writer attending a political action workshop had a “yuge” idea.
“I said we need to get some big Thanksgiving Day balloon to demonstrate the buffoonery of this situation,” Danelle Morton said, referring to a certain president now in office and his aversion to releasing his tax returns. She then set off on some Internet digging.
What she found were inflatable Donald Trump chickens, topped with a yellow bouffant, that had been created for the Chinese Lunar New Year. It is the year of the rooster, and the inflatables were meant to lampoon the president, who in the past has had harsh words for China.
Morton thought the Trump chicken fit perfectly with her feeling about how the president has handled his tax returns situation. The big Tax March to protest Trump was April 15, and Morton, who lives in San Francisco, had found the perfect weapon.
The Trump chickens were commissioned based on an original fiberglass design by a Seattle-based artist named Casey Latiolias. His other recent claim to fame was a Trump-themed potato head sculpture he called he Dick Tator. He directed Morton back to a factory in China for the inflatables.
“All these chickens were languishing in China,” Morton discovered. Trump has softened his words on the country, and last week hosted the Chinese leader at his Mara-a-Lago estate.
The Trump inflatable chickens were themselves yuge: 60 feet tall and rather expensive.
But Morton found a smaller version, which was 13 feet, and put it on her credit card. It cost about $400. She inflated it at an organizer meeting and then, bam, “it was chicken mania,” she said.
Morton went back to the manufacturer to broker a deal for more chicken inflatables.
“So I negotiated for smaller ones,” she said, getting the chickens down to 6-foot models and the price down to $250 each.
Now, cities around the country will sport the Trump chickens, just in time for the April 15 Tax March.
New York City will have three versions: a 6-foot, 9-foot and a 13-foot model. Morton’s San Francisco chapter will have four, with the pièce de resistance—a 33-foot version—stationed at City Hall Plaza.
