You’d think flipping off the president of the United States would probably have some serious consequences.
And you’d be wrong.
In Loudoun County, Va., it’ll get you elected to the Board of Supervisors.
Juli Briskman, who gave Trump’s motorcade the finger while riding her bike — a photo that went viral — defeated the Republican incumbent for the seat. Republicans across Virginia got crushed in the off-year election, losing control of both the House and the Senate for the first time in 26 years.
Loudoun County, about 30 miles outside Washington, D.C., has long been moving toward Democrats as young liberals move to the burgeoning community. The county is also one of the wealthiest in the country.
Briskman, a single mother of two, was fired from her marketing analyst job for a United States government and military subcontractor after the picture went viral in 2017. “But getting fired also opened ‘a lot of doors,’ the 52-year-old told AFP during her campaign, including accepting an invitation to run for local office on the Democratic ticket,” Agence France Presse wrote.
Briskman didn’t bring up the image that sparked her 15 minutes of fame unless homeowners started “talking about the administration” or commented on her bicycle pin.
Instead, the ultramarathon runner told AFP she wanted to show that there was “substance” behind her candidacy — education, women’s rights, transportation and environmental issues — and that she wasn’t “just the person that rode my bike one day and flipped off the president.”
The news was so big that CNN decided that a local Board of Supervisors race deserved top coverage.
Briskman was able to leverage her viral rebuke of Trump into Tuesday’s win with a campaign that made the image central to her political message.
She announced her campaign on Twitter in September 2018 by sharing a Washington Post article titled “The cyclist who flipped off Trump’s motorcade is running for public office.”
“Today, I am filing my organizational papers in a bid for local office in Loudoun County, Va. Loudoun deserves transparency in government, fully funded schools & smarter solutions to growth,” she said. “It’s time for a change.” …
“My finger said what I was feeling,” Briskman said at the time. “I’m angry and I’m frustrated.”
