Two giant inflatable Trump Chickens likely to appear at San Francisco Tax Day March
By Alyssa Pereira, SFGATE Published 12:14 pm, Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Workers show visitors an inflatable chicken that local media say bears resemblance to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump as their factory braces for the Year of the Rooster in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, China, Jan. 12, 2017. Photo: ALY SONG/REUTERS
Photo: ALY SONG/REUTERS
Organizers of theTax Day March down San Francisco's Market St. hope to double the number of yuge inflatable chickens resembling President Donald Trump that will take part in the day's event.
The march already will boast at least one chicken following a successful crowdfunding campaign to buy the bird from Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba. But march organizer Danelle Morton now hopes to gather enough cash to buy a second one, as she writes on Slate.
"The Trump chicken broke through my political gloom and did the same for many others involved in the march," she wrote. "On March 9, we found others felt the same. We put up a GoFundMe to raise $1,000 to buy the 13-foot chicken—and surpassed that total in less than an hour."
The first chicken arrived in San Francisco on March 13, and inspired organizers of similar marches in other cities to follow suit. Seventeen cities, including Nashville, New York City, and Chicago, are now also ordering the inflatable roosters.
Morton wasn't satisfied. After raising enough money to buy one chicken, she and another organizer named Anne Pruett reinstated the GoFundMe. They are now hoping to garner enough money to buy a second, larger 33-foot bird.
"If someone contributes $1,000, we will bring the 13-foot Trump chicken to the donor's party, and for $5,000, the 33-foot bird," Morton writes in hopes to encourage big donors. "And when thousands of people gather in San Francisco's City Hall Plaza for the march, they will be amused, delighted, or even disgusted by our Trump chicken."
The inflatable chickens, designed by a Seattle artist and commissioned by a Chinese company for this year's Lunar New Year celebration (it's the Year of the Rooster in China), were not necessarily created to look like the President — at least not according to its artist, Casey Latiolais. Latiolais denied that his design was based on Trump's appearance, but says that there are similarities.
"[Trump] also likes to tweet at or around sunrise, and if you take away the fact that roosters are kind of loud and self-absorbed," he added, "then I think you can start drawing similarities that way."
The Tax Day March will take place on April 15 at 10 a.m. in San Francisco.