
Adams, who frequently blogs about Trump, claims that his experience as a trained hypnotist gives him special insight into the president’s rhetorical modes.ĭuke believes in the primacy of visual culture, and most right-wing figures, he says, don’t take enough care to make themselves look good. “They look at the pictures.” He’s somewhat mystical on the topic of images he believes that his photographs operate on a hypnotic level, an idea he picked up from Scott Adams, the creator of “Dilbert,” who predicted that Trump would win the election over a year in advance and has been cashing in on his bet ever since. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but a lot of people don’t read,” he told me over beers and pasta. (Which he is the innocuous gesture is something right-wing trolls have made charged by semi-ironically claiming it as their own.)Īfter the sun had gone down, Duke and I made our way to a nearby Italian restaurant for dinner. Perched atop his head is a red Trump hat he’s flashing the “O.K.” hand sign and smiling impishly, as though he’s in on some secret joke. Duke’s surreal portrait of Malik Obama, Barack Obama’s Trump-supporting half brother, appeared on the front page of The New York Post last July.
#Do not push the red button scott adams pro#
He has worked behind the scenes, one pro bono shoot at a time, in an effort to manufacture a new image for the right, one that casts the figureheads of the political fringe in a more refined, almost majestic light.ĭuke’s subjects have included the belligerent blogger Charles Johnson, the conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich, the flamboyant rabble-rouser Milo Yiannopoulos, the “guerrilla journalist” James O’Keefe and the documentary filmmaker Phelim McAleer, a pro-fracking climate-change denier. Over the past few years, he has earned a reputation in conservative circles as a kind of visual fixer.

Duke used to work as a fashion photographer, but lately he has turned his viewfinder rightward.
#Do not push the red button scott adams full#
Duke is 60 but looks a decade younger he has a head full of wavy, sand-colored hair, and in his green hoodie, khakis, black sneakers and a camera bag slung casually over his shoulder, he gave off the air of a retired director. On a clear afternoon in mid-February, I met the photographer Peter Duke outside his apartment in Pacific Palisades, an affluent Los Angeles neighborhood situated on a high cliff overlooking the ocean.
