How Peanut the squirrel became a right-wing icon

Since Donald Trump reclaimed the White House on Wednesday, many have wondered how helpful celebrity endorsements were this time around, especially for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. But there’s one celebrity whose influence no one is questioning: Peanut the squirrel.

The social media icon became a right-wing martyr – a bushy-tailed hero whose sudden “murder by the government” had conservative supporters such as Elon Musk posting squirrel pics on social media and framing Republican votes as “justice” for Peanut and the American public.

Peanut the squirrel may be dead, but he’s still making waves in right-wing American circles.Credit: AP

Peanut, also known as P’Nut by his 866,000 Instagram followers, had been living in the small town of Pine City, New York, for about seven years with OnlyFans model Mark Longo, 34, and a raccoon named Fred.

Peanut’s Instagram shows him leaping onto Longo’s shoulder, wearing a miniature cowboy hat, and eating a waffle while wearing crocheted bunny ears.

Longo has been running an animal sanctuary with his wife, Daniela, and other family members since April 2023. He said he was in the process of filing paperwork to get Peanut certified as an educational animal.

But authorities had received several reports of “unsafe housing of wildlife” at Longo’s home and New York state law doesn’t allow squirrels or raccoons to be kept as pets. On October 30, when investigating officers from the Department of Environmental Conservation visited, Peanut bit one of them. He and Fred were taken, euthanised and tested for rabies.

Longo expressed his dismay to the New York Post. With these interviews and Peanut’s existing social media presence – which never explicitly leaned in a particular political direction, and which has grown by more than 146,000 posthumously – the story took off.

Just days before the election, some accounts began positioning Peanut as the victim of an overreaching and unjust government. Others superimposed pictures of Peanut onto images of Trump, suggesting Trump would bring justice for the little creature and others “hard done by” the current system.

Musk became a vocal advocate for Peanut, sharing AI-generated images of him as “Obi PNut Kenobi” (an enlightened, guiding figure for right-wing voters) on X, and even imploring people to “vote for Peanut” during his recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

Meanwhile, J.D. Vance, now US vice president-elect, mentioned the squirrel during one of his pre-election speeches. “Have you seen the videos of this squirrel? He’s, like, a genius. Or he was,” Vance said in North Carolina on Monday. Vance also recounted a conversation with Trump in which the president-elect compared the conservation department to the Democratic Party.

“He was like, ‘is it really the case that the Democrats murdered the Elon Musk of squirrels?’” Vance said.

After Trump’s victory, social media was further inundated with Peanut memes, most of which referred to the Republican win as “justice” for the squirrel and conservatives alike. Or, as one X user wrote post-election, “at least Peanut did not die in vain”.

with AP

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