President Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, was mocked on social media Thursday for comparing the campaign to the Death Star, a space station with a galactic weapon constructed by the Empire that gets blown up in two “Star Wars” films.
Parscale used the reference and a movie GIF to tease out a forthcoming onslaught of ads against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
“For nearly three years we have been building a juggernaut campaign (Death Star). It is firing on all cylinders. Data, Digital, TV, Political, Surrogates, Coalitions, etc. In a few days we start pressing FIRE for the first time,” he wrote.
The moon-sized battle stations featured in the first “Star Wars” film and in “Return of the Jedi” are equipped with a planet-destroying super laser. Both are destroyed by the Rebel Alliance, something that didn’t to unnoticed by thousands of social media users who poked fun at Parscale, causing “Death Star” to trend on Twitter.
“Dude, the Death Star gets blown up in the end of just about every Star Wars movie,” MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough wrote. “Why don’t you just brag about the Great Pumpkin rising from the pumpkin patch this fall? With all the money you’ve made off of Trump, spend a few of your millions of dollars streaming some movies.”
“We’ve got your Death Star right here,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) wrote.
The comparison was also seized on by Biden’s campaign.
Rob Flaherty, Biden’s digital director, wrote: “Got a fun story for you about what happens to the Death Star.”
Biden’s director of rapid response Andrew Bates simply responded with the Election Day date for November.
Some Twitter users criticized Parscale for referencing the Death Star during the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 73,573 people in the U.S.
But Parscale said he was “happy to use the analogy.”
“Laugh all you want, we will take the win!” he later wrote.
This is not the first time Team Trump has been mocked for a pop culture reference.
In January 2019, Trump unveiled a “Game of Thrones”-inspired meme in support of his plan for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. However, the wall depicted in the hit HBO show had proven ineffective when it was destroyed.