A Virginia woman who flipped off Trump’s motorcade over Halloween weekend became a folk hero to many for that reflexive act of protest (and on a bike, no less). Many right-minded people wonder what they’d do if they came across the chief combover—call him out, suggest he get some sleep instead of tweeting late into the night—but Juli Briskman just gave the president’s motorcade the finger as it left yet another golf course. Briskman explained her thinking to the Huffington Post recently:
[The president] was passing by and my blood just started to boil. I’m thinking, DACA recipients are getting kicked out. He pulled ads for open enrollment in Obamacare. Only one-third of Puerto Rico has power. I’m thinking, he’s at the damn golf course again. I flipped off the motorcade a number of times.
Unfortunately, Briskman’s act of dissension quickly got her fired from her marketing job with the Virginia-based government contractor Akima LLC. She was upfront with her employer about the bird incident on the Monday after, disclosing what happened to the HR department, which led to her being fired last Tuesday. Her bosses claimed she’d violated the company’s social media policy by making the widely circulated photo of the one-finger salute her Facebook and Twitter profile picture. According to Briskman, the company said it was “separating from [her]” because “you cannot have ‘lewd’ or ‘obscene’ things in your social media. So they were calling flipping him off ‘obscene.’”
Briskman points out how unfairly that policy is applied: Apparently, a male co-worker was only reprimanded after he commented on a post by “a fucking Libtard asshole,” despite having the company name as his cover photo. “How is that any less ‘obscene’ than me flipping off the president?” she wondered. “How is that fair?” Still, the 50-year-old cyclist, marketing professional, and mother of two says she has no regrets about flying the bird: “In some ways, I’m doing better than ever,” Briskman says. “I’m angry about where our country is right now. I am appalled. This was an opportunity for me to say something.” And she still has one of the best profile pics ever.
Akima LLC did not respond to HuffPo’s request for comment.