Sabo has cornered the market on right wing street art. His posters went up all over Los Angeles during the primaries and the election, causing quite a stir.
The guerrilla art movement is usually associated with leftwing politics. Banksy targets capitalism, consumerism and inequality. Blek le Rat, the father of stencil graffiti, depicts oppression and resistance.
Shepard Fairey gilded Barack Obama’s rise with the iconic “Hope” poster and now highlights the scapegoating of Muslims and the corporatisation of US politics.
In the Trump era, the right, however, has its own guerrilla artist: Sabo, a former US marine who works from an apartment-cum-studio in Los Angeles beneath a sign that says “Fuck Tibet”. Another says “Fuck peace”.
Forget far-right populism – crypto-anarchists are the new masters
Under cover of darkness, he peppers public spaces in LA with images and slogans targeting liberals, whom he associates with “pot-smoking lazy bums” hostile to western values. He puts the same images and slogans on posters, T-shirts and pins which he sells from his website and at Republican party gatherings across the US.
“I think leftism is a mental disorder,” Sabo, 49, said in an interview at his home. “I truly believe I’m fighting the good fight.”
The fight is proving lucrative. After a decade of inflammatory guerrilla art which yielded little money or recognition, Sabo is on a roll plastering images of Donald Trump, and most recently Milo Yiannopoulos, across LA.
In a city thrumming with opposition to the president, the artist is part of the resistance to the resistance, a figure feted in Republican circles who appears on Fox News, Breitbart, the Blaze and other conservative media outlets. No longer behind on his rent or scrounging to buy a burger, he has bought a $7,000 industrial-size printer which fills a corner of his apartment.