Cutting satire: Pro-circumcision Constantino campaign flyers are fake

A flyer distributed in the North Country over the Fourth of July and posted on social media is turning some heads. It claims Republican Anthony Constantino is the state’s first House candidate who wants every man in the United States to be circumcised, and features him in a pro-circumcision T-shirt.

“This shared commitment to universal adult male circumcision will be a pillar in unifying families, strengthening neighborhoods and reinforcing NY-21 as a beacon of American tradition,” the flyer reads, directing people to constantinocongress.com. 

The bottom of the flyer features the Nazi Party’s version of the Imperial Eagle emblem, and has a QR code that, when scanned, also takes you to the site. One page detailing the fictitious “heritage-based circumcision” agenda features another Photoshopped picture of Constantino with an Adolf Hitler mustache. Anyone who clicks any “Donate Here!” button on the site is directed to the donation page for the immigration nonprofit the Immigration Defense Project. 

Constantino, who runs the sticker and T-shirt company Sticker Mule, is widely known as a Trump-like character, a former boxer turned cage fighting promoter with outlandish antics and staunchly conservative views – such as backing the president’s deportation agenda and tightened border security. And he recently recorded and produced several hip hop songs and artificial intelligence-generated music videos about his love of the president. But in this case, his supporting “heritage-based circumcision” is too weird to be true. The flyers and website are both fake, and not from the Constantino campaign. In fact, the campaign had not seen the flyers or site until City & State reached out for comment.

Rather, both were designed by Washington County resident Cooper Wright, a content creator known as @donnyskipper (his Instagram page has some 145,000 followers). Wright lives in Washington County, in the bounds of the 21st Congressional District where Constantino is running. He owns the parody site, and first posted and distributed the joke campaign materials this winter as the Republican primary between Constantino and Assembly Member Robert Smullen was heating up. But they didn’t get more attention online, or in person, until Constantino won the Republican primary June 23. Wright wouldn’t specify exactly how many, but said the site has gotten a few thousand hits since.

Wright said the primary, which often turned nasty, inspired him to create flyers that were just as ludicrous as some of the rhetoric. “I think it was the absurdity of things – it’s something that’s just as absurd,” he said.

Another spoof flyer and post claims Constantino wants to put more robots on upstate family farms to solve their ongoing labor shortage – taking aim at the sticker magnate’s decision last year to lay off workers because of automation.

Wright said he has not gotten paid for the flyers or posts, and has never worked for a political campaign. He created both images by himself using Photoshop, not artificial intelligence, and not at anyone else’s request. A spokesperson for Blake Gendebien’s campaign, the Democrat running against Constantino this November, said that Wright, a registered Democrat, doesn’t have any affiliation with Gendebien or the campaign. 

The @donnyskipper website and its social media accounts are clearly marked to feature satire and parody content, but the physical flyers themselves and the constantinocongress.com website don’t label the content as satire.

Most people commenting on social media posts of the flyers featuring Constantino seemed to understand and acknowledge their satirical nature. But several users mistook them as fact. One person asked on Instagram if the pro-circumcision flyer was a joke, and a user replied: “He won the (primary) election, so I don’t think so.”

Wright said he hasn’t gotten the sense that most users think his content is real. “If satire causes a double take every now and then, I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” he said.

But it’s unclear if there will be legal pushback. 

While Constantino has not filed a police report, and his attorneys have not sent cease or desist letters to Wright, (who confirmed he has not heard from the campaign to date) the candidate said in a statement to City & State that the content creator “should face more severe legal repercussions.”  

But as Constantino was quick to point out in his statement, it wouldn’t be the first time Wright faced legal trouble for his work.

Claire’s, the major jewelry retail chain, sued the content creator last year and claimed some of his work was part of a “malicious and concerted campaign” against the company. It was later dropped. Wright declined to answer questions about the possibility of Constantino’s campaign taking legal action.

Wright would not say how many flyers he printed or where they were placed, but said they’re throughout the district, adding that the company will continue to dedicate “as much ink as we can print out and as much ink as we can use,” to the series. And with months to go until the election, there’s likely more to come.

“Check out the channels, and stay tuned,” the artist said.