It didn’t just ‘resemble’ the DSA emblem, it was the DSA emblem.
Via Helena IR:
Billings West High School senior Tyler Linfesty learned Thursday morning during first period that he had been selected for VIP treatment at President Donald J. Trump’s rally at MetraPark.
Linfesty had applied for tickets to the rally earlier in the week. After earning VIP treatment, he went to tell his friends.
Fellow seniors Erik Hovland and Christian Dunlap were walking to class when Linfesty “approached us in the hallway looking pretty frantic, talking about how he gets the opportunity to get a picture with the president,” Hovland said.
Linfesty reached out to the Trump campaign and told them he was planning on bringing friends. He said they told him they would save three seats for them.
Not long after Trump took the podium Thursday night at MetraPark, social media cued into Linfesty’s puzzled facial expressions, visible just over Trump’s right shoulder.
All three West seniors were ultimately asked to vacate their seats midway through the event by people they believe are Trump campaign staffers. By the end of the rally, the 17-year-olds achieved viral fame on social media.
“I didn’t really have a plan,” Linfesty said. “I was just going to clap for things I agreed with and not clap for things I didn’t agree with.”
Students at West have been shocked, but mostly positive in their reaction to seeing the trio on TV and all over the internet, where Linfesty has been dubbed “#plaidshirtguy.” […]
Early on in the Trump rally, a Billings Gazette reporter saw staffers in the press pen looking at a photo in which Linfesty was circled.
Later Linfesty pinned a stylized rose emblem representing the Democratic Socialists of America to his right breast. The same group of staffers reviewed a photo of the emblem and searched online for more information. A short while later, Linfesty was removed.
“I saw this woman walking toward me on the left,” he said. “She just said to me, ‘I’m going to replace you.'”
He said he recognized her as one of the staffers manning the VIP hand-shaking and photo opportunity.
He was escorted to a back room where police and Secret Service looked at his ID and then after about 10 minutes told him he could leave, Linfesty said. He said he didn’t feel mistreated at all during the encounter with police and Secret Service.
“They treated me fine,” he said. “They just told me not to come back.”
A few minutes later another woman the trio believes is a campaign staffer replaced Hovland and Dunlap.