RNC accidentally celebrated July 4 with the wrong flag

The Republican National Committee took a hit on social media Tuesday after its first attempt to champion Independence Day tanked on Twitter. Critics called out the organization after they noticed the party had posted an image of the wrong flag. Instead of the American flag, the photo the RNC shared included two flags with a lone star stretching across the center of each’s blue field, which more closely — though not completely — resembles the flag of Liberia, a country in West Africa. Aside from the difference in the amount of stars between the United States’ and Liberia’s flags, the former boasts 13 stripes while the latter includes 11. The banners in the image the GOP shared have 13 stripes, appearing to be an altogether-incorrect amalgamation of the flags.

The RNC deleted the tweet after critics slammed the botched execution of what should have been a simple celebratory post, but screenshots of the blunder remain on the platform despite the organization’s best efforts: “When the #GOP uses NON AMERICAN flags on Independence Day, you need to be wondering WTH is going on [thinking face emoji]? Honest question…” one user tweeted over a screengrab of the post. According to HuffPost, the image was also shared by other official accounts on the platform, including that of the San Francisco district attorney’s office and the Austin Police Department, in posts commemorating the Fourth of July. Several users also called out the accounts’ flubs, some of them noting specifically how their posts fell in the footsteps of the GOP.