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Note: This article contains images of dead animals that some readers may find disturbing.
LAST NIGHT AS Donald Trump Jr was proudly announcing his father as the Republican candidate for the US presidency, journalist and broadcaster Ronan Farrow couldn’t help but notice some symbolism.
While many of the delegates at the four-day-long convention in Cleveland are enthusiastic supporters of Trump Sr, many just can’t get behind him.
Conventions are supposed to be the time when, after a gruelling primary process, party members put their own personal choices behind them and unite behind whoever won.
Sometimes it can be difficult – but most of the time, they get there.
Except this time there are many who simply refuse to do so. Some Republicans – notably, the likes of Mitt Romney – think that supporting Trump is damaging to their own party, and indeed to the US as a whole.
That’s why, among the cheering for veterans and booing for Hillary Clinton, Commentary Magazine described a general listlessness among delegates.
That’s where the symbolism comes in…
In particular, the Republican Party’s symbol of the elephant and a reminder from Farrow that Donald Trump Jr once proudly stood holding the severed tail of a wild elephant.
The picture was taken during a ‘big game’ hunt Donald Jr went on with his younger brother Eric Trump. The photos surfaced in 2012 with The Daily Beast reporting that the pair were hunting in Zimbabwe.
Last year’s killing of Cecil the lion by US dentist Walter Palmer in the same country provoked global outrage.
On their hunting trip, the Trumps also posed beside a dead cheetah and a crocodile hanging from a tree.
The story made quite big news at the time and Trump Jr subsequently defended himself in an interview with Deer & Hunter magazine, saying he had “no regrets about it”.
Last night’s tweet from Farrow provoked a bit of reaction online – and he wasn’t the only person to notice the symbolism – but it’s unlikely to hurt his father’s campaign too much.
Whether or not the Trumps will actually kill the party, well that’s a different question.
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Anyone who kills animals for fun are idiots and they should get a huge fine and a prison sentence
Agreed, fishermen are barstewards!
Fish are not animals
Fishermen are thieves. Head out to sea, steal fish, bring them home and sell them.
Fish aren’t animals, eh? Good one
@Ross
And what are fish, if not animals
Sorry, my mistake, of course they’re animals- I was thinking of mammals. Ill crawl back under my rock now
Fish are a source of food. Fisherman catch them with intent of using them as a source of food. They don’t get any satisfaction in the death of a fish. Many hobby fisherman will throw a fish back in the water after catching them.
Shooting an elephant for the sake of a trophy is just cowardice and should be illegal. It serves no purpose. The hunter’s intent is just to gain the satisfaction of killing the animal. There’s no altruistic motives.
Sean
Commercial fishers do but fishing is also a sport that has nothing to do with getting food.
It is possible that elephants possess lvery high levels of sentience, the parts of the brain dealing with memory, emotional bonding and communication are highly developed. Elephants are seen to give over the deaths of other elephants, to go back to their remind and there are signs of significant cognition.
Although we should not anthropomorphise elephants, the level of suffering caused by hunting and the lack of benefit from killing them in terms of food, makes it hard to fund a defence for killing elephants.
I dislike hunting in general unless for life preserving food but killing elephants is obscene and reprehensible in my opinion.
Some contrast between this article and the next one down…
Peadar, that’s a valid remark.
Hahahaha best comment I’ve ever seen in my life fish are not animals hahahahahahaha
They should be a strong sentence in place for killing these beautiful creatures .
There are parts of Africa where big game hunting is big business, contributing greatly to both animal conservation and the economy.
But yeah, they are cuddly.
I’d say more mandatory psychiatric evaluation for anyone interested in paying big money to go shoot big game would be more useful.
There should be slightly smaller penalties in place for killing uglier animals.
Reports show that money from big game hunting gets siphoned away in corrupt politics and administration and only a tiny percent gets to the locality and conservation. Depending on the country of course. But this handy ‘fact’ that is often touted by big game hunters is false
‘Reports’ show that Ross do they? Must be true so.
There are also ‘Reports’ that show certain species would be extinct if they weren’t supported, both through breeding programs and policing of poaching, to maintain the lucrative, and completely insane fondness some people have for shooting big animals.
Oh, an article from an animal welfare website.
Well that will be totally impartial then.
Eyepopper, I’m confused, your point seemed to be that it was good for animal welfare
Big game hunting in Africa, yeah its definitely not corrupt at all. Great point!
Eyepopper, see if you trust these- if not, I’ll just get some more for you..
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/zimbabwe-corruption-trophy-hunting-cecil-lion-conservation/
http://www.ifaw.org/sites/default/files/Ecolarge-2013-200m-question.pdf
Ross evidence and statistics are unfortunately no match for prejudgment and irrational opinion!
What kinda dink cut off an elephants tail and goes look what I did duuuh
I love the fact that you can brag about being so popular you could murder someone, and spew vile, dangerous bigotry, racism, misogyny and hatred for months, but its not until people remember that your kid once shot an elephant that they get upset.
That’s liberals for you.
The kinda folks who travelled all the way to Nicaragua during the war to protest the fact that salamanders in food markets were bound with guitar wire.
That’s conservatives for you. No empathy.
Now now Frank’s Cat – that isn’t true. The bould Ricky Grimes was begging us yesterday and today to have some compassion for the Velocci fella who murdered his son and attempted to murder his ex-partner. Oh the poor misunderstood man – if only society would have paid more attention to him.
Then again, Ricky didn’t seem too concerned about the dead toddler and the woman full of knife holes, so maybe you are right after all Frank’s Cat.
It takes a special kind of dumb pr!ck to be proud about killing anything for sport , specially such beautiful and majestic creatures as cheetahs or elephants.
Eh …eyepopper – I think people were upset about both. In fact there was a lot more anger about Trump’s misogyny and racism etc. than this.
I’m a liberal but I have to say that’s a really well put together response, kudos.
That’s directed @ricky grimes
Most Rebublicans would be in favour of any type of hunting. Any differences between Trump and other Republicans would come from them seeing him as too liberal, no?
Killing an elephant is like killing a human in my view. Disgusting
He’s a class act :-)
I was reading about this elsewhere, and in another article Trump Jr offered the usual justifications…going on about how it helps conservation, supports local communities etc. He spoke of how the poor locals were delighted with the meat they got from his hunts and how he always brought donations of shoes, clothing etc on his trips. Basically the same nonsense that all these bloodthirsty trophy hunters spout.
For someone with that sort of money, it would be just as easy to donate the sizeable hunting fee along with any food, shoes etc, to conservation and development groups, without actually having to hunt anything. They don’t though as they are sad little people who get their kicks out of killing.
So true.
All the money in the world and he still can’t afford any sense!!!
Yawn…. There are more African Elephants being killed for Ivory than are being born by poachers every year. Yet a celebrity pays a huge fee to shoot a species in a controlled environment legally and it creates uproar?
Poachers are at least doing it to earn a living.
Celeb’s/tourists are doing it because strangling hookers is too dangerous with modern forensic investigation techniques.
Not to mention without rich business people paying to hunt these animals the game keepers and breeding programmes wouldn’t be funded. Its very sad but unfortunately without these barbaric tourists almost all big game in Africa would be dead. But no one wants to hear that.
Nobody want’s to hear it because it’s pure nonsense, Ken. A good way to preserve these fine beasts would be to stop shooting them.
Gonna leave this right here: http://conservationmagazine.org/2014/01/can-trophy-hunting-reconciled-conservation/
Ken, I left a few links above on how very little of the money from hunting gets to conservation and localities due to corruption. Have a read
That ain’t a cheetah either
Leopard. Fabulous animal, murdered by two disgusting imbeciles.
Also, I’d have an issue with the headline. These gimps didn’t “hunt” an elephant. Not the way our ancestors hunted the Woolly Mammoth for food and clothing, essentially for sustenance. They shot a magnificent animal with a rifle from a safe distance. Then a photo with a chopped-off tail. Same vital appendix that had hours earlier been swatting away pesky flies, or maybe “holding hands” with a trunk as a herd of them decided to head off somewhere. Absolute dirt merchants.
I’ve been living in the US for the past 6 months and crooked Hilary is the problem with the US, Donald has tremendous experience running exquisite businesses creating thousands of jobs. Lying Hilary has done none of this, she left the troops in Benghazi, cheated with her emails, if crooked Hilary wins she will destroy the US, sad.
He has a history a bankruptcy and isn’t nearly as successful in business as he claims.
Hillary is not much better though.
And….you’re actually SERIOUS!!!!
Norma, Donald has plenty of experience bankrupting business
Presidency might be the first thing he ever had to work for though which at nearly 70 is worrying
The words coffin nail and president spring to mind !
You clearly don’t know the American people!
Hillary and Trump, two sides of the same coin…
I wouldn’t be too harsh on him especially if he shot the elephant in the room
Really did he leave a libya base to be ransacked by the Islamists? Nope
Fish are dopes
Killing elephants is awesome, it really is.
I see that you green thumbed yourself. Pathetic.
What do you expect from a character like this guy anyway?
That’s what this fuking excuse of a family are about. Each one of them are useless pampered parasites that are no good starting at the top with that baboon D Trump. Christ above how fuking stupid are the ppl voting him in?
Trump family are a bunch of F.u.c.k.w.i.t.s.
suspended sentences all round
Im not at all surprised. And his father is going to be president? God help america
I HAVE MONEY, THEREFORE I CAN DO ANYTHING I LIKE mentality?
Next hunt poor people, the belief says millionaires are slightly mad but billionaires are right psychos…
Guns, murder and corrupt businesses controlling government. That is the US CV now, makes me sick, the rich have ruined the US…
Half of the animals “hunted “are drugged or penned in enclosures to make them easy targets. http://www.alternet.org/environment/6-grisly-facts-trophy-hunters-dont-want-you-know-cecil-least-it
His eyes scare me, they says it all?
It’s what rich guys do as it fuels their own macho image of themselves and their place in HS world. I doubt if the Donald Junior even gave he wider implications a moments thought. It’s recreation and fun after all .
Trump shafted on a trunk.
Tusk, tusk.
Big game hunting, ironically, allows endangered animals in Africa to survive.
No doubt the Trump sons paid a lot of money to hunt in Zimbabwe. That money will be used to keep out poachers, who would otherwise wipe out all the elephants and big cats in the reserve.
have your say