The Trump chicken was hanging out in Dupont Circle this afternoon. (Photo by Erik Stegman)

The Trump chicken was hanging out in Dupont Circle this afternoon. (Photo by Erik Stegman)

Like most of the massive rallies organized in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory, Saturday’s Tax March is the result of spontaneous social media organizing. Unlike the others, this one has a giant, inflatable chicken as a mascot.

Law professor Jennifer Taub tweeted a call in January for a march demanding that Trump #showusyourtaxes. Her missive and a subsequent tweet by comedian Frank Lesser wound up going viral. “I traffic in ideas that people usually ignore,” Taub told the Guardian. “I invest years in research, writing, and crafting a book, meticulously searching and referencing. I’ve testified before Congress. And nothing happens.” Not so this time around.

Seeing support for the idea coalesce, an executive committee got to planning. There are now 180 events, largely around the country with a few abroad, slated to happen on Saturday.

Still, it easily could have gotten lost in the slew of marches on D.C. planned this spring. There’s one for at least the next four weeks in a row, and they have rather more urgent seeming messages: climate change! science! immigrants! But Tax Marchers have some attention-getting help in the form of a gilded, blow-up chicken.

The symbolism of cartoonish, inflated fowl is just too rich, the chicken puns too numerous, the gold hair too perfect. It’s like catnip for Washingtonians, who have been snapping shots of the mascot hanging out around town.

Naturally, we had questions … so many questions. So we spoke to local organizer Anna Chu, a vice president at the National Women’s Law Center and a member of the executive planning committee, about what they’re up to. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

DCist: What is the backstory of the march?

Anna Chu: After Kellyanne Conway made the comment after the election, as Trump was coming into office, that nobody cares whether he releases his taxes, people around the country reacted very strongly, including Jennifer. Here is an individual who is going to hold the highest office in our land and who is supposed to be working for the American people, but he is not holding himself to the same standards that presidents have done for decades. We demand transparency and accountability from our leaders—we have a right to that. Why is Trump any different than any of his predecessors?

DCist: So how did you get from there to 180 marches around the country?

AC: That’s the thing that’s really exciting. Ever since the election, people have voiced their concerns and taken part in the democratic process in a very direct way. Professor Taub came out, and called for the march and we saw that grow into what it is now.

There’s a different energy these days. People are pairing action with what they’re saying. You had the Women’s March draw out so many people. You see that people are building communities online and then as it grows, you have even more people buy in.

For a lot of people organizing the local tax marches, this is their first time organizing, but they feel that passionate. The marches are connecting, we’re pulling on each other and leaning on each other.

DCist: Did you learn anything from the Women’s March in terms of organizing from this kind of grassroots enthusiasm?

AC: I think they are the gold standard for all of us in terms of what they ended up being able to do, how many people they were able to engage. It’s been a learning experience for all of us, and we were thankful to have some of the people on the executive committee who worked with Women’s March organizers. They were able to share best tips and strategies, like how to best highlight and support the local marches so we are all lifting and supporting one another up. So every time we talk to the press, making sure we are listing and highlighting all of the 180 marches that are happening outside of D.C.—because D.C. is just one part. There’s actually one in Tokyo, though no one wanted to send me to Tokyo.

DCist: Did the leak of part of Trump’s tax returns change anything for you?

ACT: I think it gave people more energy. It helped highlight the issue for us. It was only two pages. It didn’t show any of the information people needed to see to know whether or not he has shady dealings with Russia, and who he is actually working for, where his business ties are, where his conflicts of interests are. And now, as he heads into tax reform and cutting taxes for big corporations, is he doing them to benefit himself? How will he himself profit? We don’t know. The two pages released show none of that information and it’s only one year. We need to know the full story.

DCist: What kinds of signs are you bringing, any favorites?

AC, laughing for at least five seconds: There’s a very healthy, vibrant email discussion about signs and chants. My friends are the wonkier tax type. Let’s just say that they are taking advantage of the fact that there haven’t been a lot of tax marches in history. I think the last one most people are familiar with was probably the Boston Tea party. So a lot of my wonkier friends and I are using this opportunity to talk about tax fairness issues, whose side is he working on, and issues about economic justice and tax reform. There’s a healthy chain of tremendously wonky tax reform oriented signs. They’re terrible and only a small minority of people will find them funny

DCist: Do you have examples?

AC: Oh god, I do. Hold on. He posted in on Facebook and it just killed me. Here it is: “Grab them by the net operating loss carry function.” Like, oh dear god. But honestly these are opportunities for nerds to unite. And people have really taken to this Trump chicken.

DCist: Okay, that’s really what I wanted to talk to you about. Can you please explain the Trump chicken?

AC: Oh goodness … a couple of the local marches somehow found these big inflatable white chickens with gold hairdos online and decided that they were fantastic and ordered a whole bunch of chickens with the pretext that Trump is too chicken to release his taxes. San Francisco was the earliest one. They shared their chickens with other organizers and the idea just caught on, everybody loved it, and now I forget how many chickens we have—let me look. There’s a chain about how many chickens there are … I’m not even joking, where’s the chicken email?

There we go. There are around a dozen marches with chickens, but there are more chickens because some cities have more than one. I think someone has a 13-foot chicken, San Francisco has quite a few chickens.

[Danelle Morton explains how she turned a rooster commissioned for a Chinese real estate into the march’s mascot in this Slate article]

DCist: Where does one purchase a Trump chicken?

AC: I don’t know. I didn’t have to be in charge of buying the chicken.

DCist: Is it meant to be an anthropomorphized Trump, or is it its own character? Does it have a gender or a name?

AC: We’ve just been calling it the Trump chicken, and it has Trump’s hairdo. We have not discussed the gender of the chicken, that has not come up. We’ve just been referring to as ‘the chicken.’

[Another organizer says that the chicken has an official name: Donny]

DCist: But is it more like a character, or is it meant to be Trump in chicken form?

AC: I think it is more like Trump in chicken form…wow, this is a very philosophical question. I think a lot of people gravitated toward it because there is a humorous aspect. But it is in the form of a chicken, and it has some Trump-like aspects, particularly its hair.

DCist: Where will it be hanging out in the days leading up to the march? Does the chicken have a schedule?

AC: It is going to known spots around town. I can get you the schedule.

[He is in Dupont Circle this afternoon and will head up to Silver Spring this evening. You can also, naturally, follow him on Twitter]

DCist: It seems to be really grabbing people’s attention. I assume that was the point?

AC: This lends itself to so many issues: transparency, openness in government, accountability, and we are also heading into tax reform. We have no idea who he is working for, how he is going to benefit himself. What if all of a sudden they decide to really push forward some pro-real estate industry tax cuts and he sees a huge upside to that … we don’t know. If it takes a Trump chicken to bring awareness to that, then we will have the Trump chicken.

DCist: Do you think Trump is bothered by the chicken?

AC: I don’t have those types of relationship in the West Wing, but he’s not known for having particularly thick skin so it would be funny to see how he would react. People really love the idea of the chicken for multiple things, but if it gets him to react and take the issue seriously and remind him that we care, we are watching it’s not going away…I guess we should order more chickens.

DCist: Do you think this will all really work?

AC: I’m reminded of a remark that a friend made to me. She said that two of the more effective things that have worked, in her opinion, are direct action by people and also lawsuits. We have to do this, it’s impacting the tenor over there. This is a president who watches the news all the time. We have to show him that people are watching, that people care about these issues, and we’re not going away.

The Tax March is slated for noon to 4 p.m on Saturday, starting at the U.S. Capitol West Front Fountain (1 First St. NW).

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