Shia La Beouf joined Nastja Säde Rönkkö, and Luke Turner on a project that seeks to campaign against the divisive rhetoric currently at play in the White House. The project revolves around a livestream that has been set up outside The Museum of Moving Images in New York. The creators have urged people to join in the movement by chanting, “He will not divide us” into the livestream video. Set to last for the entire four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, the livestream video will no doubt be a powerful campaign tool in the face of the current changes occurring in the White House.
Man hijacks livestream
When a man tried to hijack La Beouf’s anti-Trump livestream with racist comments, he reacted by repeating “He will not divide us” with increasing passion. The livestream video shows La Beouf staring directly into the man’s eyes and blocking his path as he attempts to come up close to whisper racist and white supremacist slogans into the camera. The man can be heard whispering “fourteen eighty eight” which is a reference to the white supremacist 14 word slogan created by David Lane. Although the livestream has only been active for a few days it has already seen visitors such as Jayden Smith come to support, drawing a large number of chanters to the scene. With the mass Protest seen throughout the women's marches around the world, this project is in a long line of campaigns reacting to the Trump presidency.
A show of resistance and optimism
La Beouf commented that the stream is a show of “resistance or insistence, opposition or optimism guided by the spirit of each individual participant." The livestream has already seen the crowd chanting in pouring rain and free-styling a song version of the slogan “He will not divide us." The catchphrase is like a mantra repeated to instill a sense of unity, as if the participants are meditating on the positive forces that are attempting to protest the Trump presidency. While the campaign is only in its early stages, a whole four years of chanting will no doubt bring many more heated encounters, and make for an interesting watch.
