A photo of high school cheerleaders holding a Trump banner ignited a heated controversy in North Carolina that drew in a congressman and an alleged member of a far-right group, showing how local skirmishes can both fuel and be fed by the nation’s broader culture wars.

The saga began on Friday, Aug. 30 .

That night, several cheerleaders from North Stanly High School, about an hour northeast of Charlotte, were photographed at a football game holding a sign supporting President Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. The photograph quickly made its way onto Facebook, where it elicited a backlash.

Though the school didn’t discipline the cheerleaders, it did criticize their actions, saying that the focus of athletic events should be squarely on students, not politics.

“Because the cheerleaders were in uniform and were acting as representatives of the school, the display of the sign could be perceived as the school or school system endorsing a political campaign,” it said in a statement.