Charles Leazott hadn’t thought about the seal in months. The 46-year-old graphic designer threw it together after the 2016 presidential election — it was one part joke, one part catharsis. He used to be a proud Republican. He voted for George W. Bush. Twice. But Donald J. Trump’s GOP was no longer his party. So he created a mock presidential seal to prove his point.
He substituted the arrows in the eagle’s claw for a set of golf clubs — a nod to the new president’s favorite pastime. In the other set of talons, he swapped the olive branch for a wad of cash and replaced the United States’ Latin motto with a Spanish insult. Then, his coup de grace: a two-headed imperial bird lifted straight from the Russian coat of arms, an homage to the president’s checkered history with the adversarial country.
...
In one fell news cycle, Leazott began making money and fielding calls from papers and TV stations from across the country. People wanted to support him. But the trolls came, too. “The worst has been Facebook,” he said, which he hadn’t checked “in like a year.” “Holy crap at the amount of vile, hateful Facebook messages," he said. "It’s apparently a personal affront to some people.”
But, Leazott said, it’s him who gets the last laugh. A photo of Trump in front of his seal is now his computer background, and the person who used it at the event is “either wildly incompetent or the best troll ever — either way, I love them.”