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Giant inflatable ‘Trump chicken’ sails around the bay

Road-crossing position remains ambiguous

By Adam Brinklow
Photo by CDEL Family

As its owners promised, a 33-foot-tall inflatable balloon depicting Donald Trump as a chicken wearing a striped prison uniform sailed around the bay Sunday, making stops at Fisherman’s Wharf, the Ferry Building, and McCovey Cove.

The “Trump chicken” has almost become a familiar sight in San Francisco since its first appearance at a protest march in April of 2017.

San Francisco writer Danelle Morton conceived of the fowl balloon after seeing photos of similar inflatable displays in China—created by overseas wags as a way to celebrate the Year of the Rooster and protest Trump policies at the same time.

When planning a Tax Day protest rally in March 2017, Morton wrote in Slate that she decided American protesters would respond to similar imagery:

I wanted to fill a 60-foot Chicken Don with helium so my fellow protesters and I could march it down San Francisco’s Market Street on April 15, preceded by brass bands and followed by people in costume. [...] The Trump chicken broke through my political gloom and did the same for many other involved in the march.

A string of crowdfunding campaigns yielded a series of large and prominent Trump chicken balloons, although none have quite reached the original proposed 60-foot scale.

The 33-foot bird’s prison-stripe shirt is a recent addition, tailored by organizers specifically to fit the balloon and painted by hand because “there wasn’t a printed fabric on the market that had stripes wide enough for a prison shirt this big,” according to TheTrumpChicken.org.

The Trump chicken previously appeared circling Alcatraz via boat in February. According to the project’s GoFundMe page, Sunday’s outing appears to have been in response to last week’s joint press conference between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.

No word yet on when the presidential poultry may put in another local appearance, but the Trump Chicken creators promises that the group has funds remaining and intends to maintain its cocky stance in the future.

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