The soft authoritarianism of Trump’s 2028 merch
Plus: Mark Carney’s pro-Canadian, anti-Trump brand just won him an election
The soft authoritarianism of Trump’s 2028 merch
Inside the Trump Store, there’s no Constitution and Federal Election Campaign donation limits don’t matter.
The Trump Store — not to be confused with Trump’s online campaign shop, which remains online nearly six months after the election — is the official merchandise and apparel arm of President Donald Trump’s company, the Trump Organization. It sells products at Trump properties and at trumpstore dot com, like Trump-branded golf gear and Trump crest blankets, and last week it launched its most provocative item ever: a $50 Trump 2028 hat.
Trump’s repeated comments about breaking the two-term limit of the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment and the new merch now associated with it is just “Trump trolling,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday. “Although the hats are flying off the shelves.”
Though Trump often trolls, in the first 100 days of his second term, many of his most extreme remarks have been taken literally to an extent that wasn’t seen during his first term. He’s shattered the U.S.-led post-war world order and economic system, expanded the powers of the presidency, pardoned criminals, and gave the world’s richest man the assignment of gutting government. So if the White House says he’s just joking about not leaving office when his time is up — something he’s already tried and failed to do once in 2021 — it’s understandable why not everyone’s laughing.
The Trump Store’s 2028 hats, along with matching koozies and a shirt that says “Trump 2028 (Rewrite the Rules),” are indeed a troll to trigger the libs. But the new line is also a new revenue stream and a way to soft pedal authoritarianism.
Trump told the Atlantic his supporters want him to seek a third term but added, “It’s not something that I’m looking to do. And I think it would be a very hard thing to do.” It would be especially hard considering his current approval rating. At 100 days in office, Trump’s 39% rating shows most of the country isn’t clamoring for more and some of his voters now have buyer’s remorse.
While the Trump Store sells apparel and merchandise you might imagine a hotel chain would sell, like bathrobes, polo shirts, and candles, it’s increasingly leaned into its namesake’s new job with apparel branded not for the golf courses or hotels, but his campaigns and presidency. There’s exclusive “Make America Great Again” hats in Easter- and Valentine’s Day-themed colorways and a trucker hat that says “Gulf of America, Yet Another Trump Development.” Without FEC donation limits or rules restricting sales exclusively to U.S. citizens, the storefront has a wider potential customer base than the official campaign store.
Like Trump’s Mar-a-Lago-fied Oval Office, the Trump Store’s political merch is a visual representation of a larger trend. As Trump attempts to grow the powers of the presidency beyond the rules and norms of the office, he’s simultaneously seeking to merge the office to the man. The Trump Store’s 2028 merch may be marketed as a joke, but it treats the erosion of democratic norms as a business and branding opportunity.
Previously in Yello:
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Mark Carney’s pro-Canadian, anti-Trump brand just won him an election
Unlike in the U.S., Canadian politics is multiparty and often defined by issues without salience to its neighbors to the south. But after Trump took office for a second term earlier this year and threatened Canada’s sovereignty and economy, the top issue in Canadian politics became one intimately familiar to Americans: Trump.
Trump was the central figure in Canada’s election Monday — and voters were impressed by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s vision for standing up to him. In a campaign video released on Election Day, Carney, who won reelection, laid out his closing message. “The crisis in the United States doesn’t stop at their borders,” he says. “But this is Canada and we decide what happens here. Let’s choose to be united and strong. Canada strong.”
“Canada Strong” is Carney’s campaign slogan, itself a crib on an American trend of cities messaging resilience following tragedies like shootings or natural disasters. But Carney’s message is pure Canadian and emphasizes national unity against Trump’s saber rattling and trade wars. It’s defiant and conveys Carney’s “elbows up” approach toward the U.S., and it also provides a handy counterpoint to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, whose campaign slogan “Canada First” echoes Trump’s own “America First” refrain.
“You can’t stand up to Trump when you’re working from his playbook,” Carney said in his campaign announcement video. The video juxtaposed footage of Trump and Poilievre, including a clip of Poilievre chomping on an apple during a viral interview where he was asked about “taking a page out of the Donald Trump book.”
The Liberal Party’s fundraising message on its homepage emphasizes its anti-Trump stance by being Canada nice: “Support #PositivePolitics,” the site says, with a call to action to support things like “diversity over division” and “evidence-based decision making.” And Carney’s campaign logo and visual identity is simple and patriotic, reflecting a public image of someone who’s handled crises before and is prepared to do so again.
Carney, a former central banker for Canada and the U.K. during Brexit, never held elected office before being elected Liberal Party leader in March. He replaced former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and came to the campaign with a simple message and a present threat with Trump in office. Trump repeated his rhetoric against Canada Monday, calling the country a “beautiful . . . landmass” in a social media post and suggesting the U.S.-Canada border is an “artificially drawn line from many years ago.”
Canadian consumers have already responded to Trump’s tariffs and threats by not vacationing in the U.S. or selling their U.S. homes. Canadian consumer brands have responded in the form of initiatives like “Made in Canada” advertising and in-store signage at grocery store chains. Politics followed suit.
Carney’s campaign strategy and the brand built to communicate it is similar in ways to what U.S. voters sometimes see in down-ballot elections when the president is unpopular, as Trump is. With Trump, the trend of tying your opponent to an unpopular president has now gone international.
Have you seen this?
Republican legislators — but not Democrats — who share low-credibility info get rewarded with more clicks. A study of the 6,500 state legislators in Facebook and Twitter finds the spoils of low-credibility information are not evenly distributed. [Nieman Lab]
Corporate sponsors are backing away from LGBTQ+ Pride organizations. Numerous LGBTQ+ groups are facing six-figure sponsorship deficits for their annual Pride celebrations, forcing some to modify their festival plans. [CNBC]
Why Trump is historically unpopular 100 days in. A new ABC News-Washington Post-Ipsos poll found his approval at 39%, lower than any president 100 days into their term going back 80 years. [Whig]
History of political design
“Dying is no excuse! Nixon in '96!" button (1995). After Richard Nixon's death in 1994, satirical buttons called for him to run for a third term. Roger Stone, an advisor to both Nixon and Trump, wore one of these buttons on his lapel during a 1995 dinner, according to the New York Times.
A portion of this newsletter was first published in Fast Company.
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