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On 22 June 2016, a photograph purportedly showing a billboard for a Congressional candidate named Rick Tyler, bearing the slogan Make America White Again along with pictures of various white American historical figures and a white family was widely circulated via social media: Although the image was also published by several legitimate news outlets, many viewers remained skeptical that anyone running for Congress would employ a slogan that seemed so blatantly racist. According to Nashville television station WSMV the Make America White Again billboard was put on display off of Highway 411 in Polk County, Tennessee, by independent Rick Tyler,& who is running for a congressional seat in Tennessee's 3rd district that is currently held by Republican Chuck Fleischmann. A (since-deleted) statement posted by Tyler explained the rationale behind the billboard from his point of view and offered a preview of putative future campaign billboards: The controversial billboard was apparently taken down on 21 June 2016, and Tyler's campaign web site has also been inaccessible since then (possibly due to an unexpected crush of traffic. Tyler offered a lengthy response to the brouhaha engendered by his campaign billboard in a (since-removed) Facebook post: The Ballotpedia web site records that Tyler ran for the same office in 2014 and received 5,579 votes, or 0.4% of the total votes cast.
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