As we are living in the year of a presidential election filled with political movements, this image’s relevance intensifies greatly. Through focusing on the message in this image one could really see how accurate it is in our lives. The fact that this is an election year makes this art much more efficacious because viewers are much more able to apply it to what is going on now. The central message of the art “if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes truth politics” has proven itself lately to be extremely precise throughout the past few months. Unfortunately, it is quite undeniable that candidates of such an influential office as that of the President of the United States lie a good bit. They lie to gain an advantage and they even lie about their opponent lying to gain an advantage. They know that most of the general public will hear what they are saying and simply believe it without actually researching the authenticity of it, and they use that simple fact to their own advantage. It is also ironic that this art has an example within itself to somewhat prove its point. It essentially shows one lie about lies being crossed out and corrected into a more truthful assessment about lies. The lies that are going on now with our presidential candidates are almost innumerable. The most recent and obvious for Republican nominee Donald J. Trump is when he denied Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s claims that he says climate change is a hoax though he posted those exact assertions on twitter in the weeks before. The lies surrounding Clinton seem almost innumerable themselves, with one example being in the scandal with her emails where she adamantly and consistently claimed she never emailed any classified information, and then was proven wrong by in depth investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Through analyzing the aspects of this art and the message it conveys, one can see how applicable it is during this time in our country.

It is worth mentioning the person who seems to be editing this cliché of “if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes truth.” The person crossing out the word “truth” and changing it to “politics” seems to be a young girl. This is interesting because it helps promote the idea that even those who may not be well-educated and well-informed in political current events still are aware that it just simply involves so much lying from almost all people involved. You would not expect a young girl such as the one depicted to know very much about politics because it is simply not a general area of focus for young children. It is also worth mentioning that the little girl is using the color red. The color red generally is one that represents energy, passion, and action. This is possibly a way that the artist is showing how passionate people are to get all the lying involved in politics to stop. It shows how the people want action and to create change in this area.

In looking at this image very thoroughly, one may also notice what seems to be the portrayal of a hand on the back of each of the young girl’s pant legs, integrated into the pattern of the shadows by the artist. Both of the hands seem to possibly be holding up their middle finger. This symbol is quite known in our culture as a derogatory gesture to another party. This seems to also correlate to the phrase at the top of the image because politics also often involve this kind of derogatory language between candidates, often having no meaning on actual issues that the people care about. The artist of the image seems to be calling out that the lies involved in politics need to stop, as well as the hateful, pejorative language between candidates, because neither are constructive to the actual issues at hand.

The main issues that this image brings to the viewer’s attention are extremely pertinent during this time. Banksy uses his graffiti to bring up his and others views on social and political issues. In this image, the blatant issue he brings up is the consistent lies involved with politics. This problem is undeniable regardless of party association or political views. This is the idea that is obvious to the basic viewer, but to those who analyze the picture more in depth, a more general idea is seen – that things such as constant lies, hateful banter between candidates, and much more, cause political races to be ineffective because they end up straying from the issues in our lives that should actually be addressed.