Outside the Beltway

Woman Who Flipped The Bird To Trump Wins Election

Juli Briskman gave Donald Trump a one-fingered salute in a photograph that went viral. Two years later, she won election in a district that includes Trump's golf course.

Doug Mataconis · Wednesday, November 6, 2019 · 8 comments

Back on October 27, 2017, Northern Virginian Juli Briskman was cycling in the area near President Trump’s Loudoun County, Virginia golf course when she decided to respond by giving the President a one-fingered salute that was captured by a photographer who posted the photograph on social media where it unsurprisingly went viral. Subsequently, Briskman, who worked for a government contractor at the time, lost her job due to the incident, in response to which she sued her employer for wrongful termination. Last night, she won a seat on Loudoun County’s Board of Supervisors, ironically representing a district that includes Trump’s golf course:

A legion of reasons propel political neophytes to run for office, but none may be as unusual as what inspired Juli Briskman, the cyclist who gave President Trump the finger two years ago and found herself without a job and at the center of a national uproar.

On Tuesday, Briskman got a new job, winning a seat on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors — ousting a Republican in the process.

“It’s feeling fantastic, it’s feeling surreal,” Briskman, 52, a Democrat, said by telephone as she celebrated her victory. “The last two years have been quite a ride. Now we’re helping to flip Loudoun blue.”

In 2017, Briskman was engaged in a different form of flipping, this one involving her middle finger, which she raised as she rode a bicycle alongside the presidential motorcade as Trump departed his golf club in Sterling.

The moment was captured by a photographer, whose picture of Briskman — her back to the camera, finger raised — found its way to Twitter and set off a social media storm. Days later, after she told her bosses that she was the woman behind the finger, her employer, Akima, a government contracting firm, fired her.

By then, Briskman was already active in local politics. But she said that the incident gave her new inspiration to work at the polls in 2017, volunteer on Democrat Jennifer Wexton’s campaign when she ran for Congress, and run for a $66,000-a-year seat.

A single mother of two, Briskman, who began her campaign for supervisor eight months ago, said she was intent on basing her campaign on issues and not the incident involving her finger.

“I’ve lived in the district for over 20 years,” Briskman said. “We were a little concerned about that being the platform. Voters want to know you understand their issues.”

But she acknowledged that her notoriety helped her raise $150,000 for the race.

If a voter expressed opposition to the president, Briskman said she would mention, “I’m the woman who flipped off the motorcade and lost my job. And they would say, ‘Oh yeah, that woman!'”

Briskman went on to call the fact that her district includes the area where Trump’s golf course, “sweet justice,” but did not suggest that she intends to pursue any kind of anti-Trump agenda. In any case, good for Briskman for using the incident to propel herself into a political career, and wishing her good luck in the future. And, yes, there is sweet justice in the fact that she won the election just over two years after the day that made her famous.