Trump sneakers and the MAGA uniform: Merchandising fascism to the mainstream

Donald Trump is basically a political cult leader. His MAGA followers are his flock.

A cult has the following features: It is a collective unhealthy relationship where individuals lose their sense of self to the larger group and where those new relationships supersede the other, presumably, more healthy relationships in a person’s life. In essence, the former person is replaced by the new cult identity. In this model, the cult leader exerts undue and harmful influence over the members. They, in turn, sacrifice their well-being and autonomy in service to the leader’s wants and needs. In addition to emotional and psychological abuse, the cult leader usually engages in physical violence (including sexual abuse) and financial exploitation.

Donald Trump has apparently directly engaged in or encouraged all these behaviors to varying degrees. In a 2020 conversation with me here at Salon, Steven Hassan, who is a leading authority on the psychology of cults explained:

Donald Trump fits the stereotypical profile of all destructive cults. These traits include malignant narcissism. Trump can easily be compared to Jim Jones, Sun Myung Moon, and other cult leaders. Trump always had a cult of personality around him in terms of his businesses and his social interactions with people. But once Trump attained the presidency, he took over the Republican Party and instituted a fiefdom where he rewards loyalty and punishes anyone who displeases him.

As for definitions, a “destructive cult” is an authoritarian pyramid-structured group with someone at the top who claims to know all things and says God is working through him or her. Trump does that as well. Donald Trump is also trying to control people’s behavior, the information they have access to, and their thoughts and emotions, to make them dependent and obedient and under his control. Consider the novel coronavirus pandemic and how Trump has all these followers who do not trust real experts and only take what Trump says to be true. Trump’s followers also don’t believe in science and medicine.

For decades, Donald Trump has shown himself to be especially adept and skilled at financially exploiting his followers and public through fraud and other such criminal behavior. In keeping with how he is a type of professional wrestling “heel” (villain), Trump is a type of confidence man huckster right out of “carnie” culture.

This “Trump merchandise industrial complex” has proven to be very lucrative and likely worth many millions of dollars. The Trump merchandise empire is part of a larger fundraising operation where the corrupt ex-president’s followers have given him many tens of millions of dollars. Trump, who claims to be a billionaire, is soliciting his MAGA people to give him money that will be used for his legal defense and fines in his civil case (that at this point now total almost 500 million dollars).

There is even a GoFundMe started by one of Trump’s loyalists to aid in his legal defense.

On an almost daily basis, Donald Trump and his campaign send out emails – sometimes several emails in one day – announcing the newest Trump merchandise, which his followers are encouraged to buy as a show of love for the Dear Leader. Like any fake “collectibles” business model, the goal is to produce an endless supply of items so that there is always something new, valuable, and more exclusive than the previous item.

For example, on Tuesday, Trump sent out an email proudly announcing a new “limited edition gold MAGA hat!”. The day before, Trump announced a new “exclusive” membership card:

I wanted to reach out to you personally to let you know that I’ve launched a prestigious membership program.

This membership is exclusive and spots are running out…

My Official Trump Gold Card is the key to unlocking your membership.

It’s METAL!

The Trump merchandise machine is infinite. On Thursday, as I was writing this essay, I received an email announcing a new “limited edition” Trump MAGA hat — this time in black and white.

Trump is always selling special and “exclusive” trips to visit him at his Mar-a-Lago headquarters, as well as special “top secret” videos for his most loyal followers. And as though he is some type of saint or other holy man, Trump, who has declared himself “chosen by God” and a type of fascist messiah and prophet whose quest to take back the White House is preordained, is even selling pieces of the suit he wore during one of his criminal arraignments. 

And, of course, there are the Donald Trump sneakers, cologne, flags, stickers, NFT superhero trading cards and a seemingly endless variety of other merchandise.

Those outside of the MAGAverse and TrumpWorld laugh at Trump’s followers for being “stupid” because they give him money for such “junk”. Moreover, that the MAGA people would do such a thing is more proof of how “gullible” they are. The liberal schadenfreude in the Age of Trump knows no limits; liberal schadenfreude may feel good for those who bask in it, but it does and has done little to nothing to stop Donald Trump and the American neofascists and their assaults on democracy and freedom. If anything, Donald Trump and his MAGA people and the other neofascists feed off the disapproval and condemnation.

This signals a large failing of too many Democrats, liberals, progressives, and especially the professional centrists and hope peddlers in the mainstream news media and political class, even after more than seven years of experience in the Trumpocene. Too many still do not understand the power of emotion and identity in fascism and other forms of fake right-wing populism. These are political movements and belief systems – and in the case of Trump and the MAGA movement, they are best understood as charismatic personality cults – that exist outside of normal politics and its idealized assumptions about rational voters who act out of material self-interest. 

Trumpism, like fascism more broadly, is first and foremost a type of corrupt power. Fascism is not an ideology per se. It is an imagination based upon rage, anger, hatred, and where violence and destruction are viewed as legitimate if not preferred means of getting and keeping revolutionary power. Sadopolitics, necropolitics, the cult of personality and the will to power cohere the fascist imagination. In total, fascism is a force that gives its followers a sense of personal and collective meaning as they engage in violence and other forms of harm and suffering against “the enemy.” In many ways, fascism and other such political projects are “identity” politics in some of its worst forms.

Donald Trump and his MAGA merchandise and assorted regalia are a way of creating meaning and a sense of belonging – and of identifying one’s place in the hierarchy of that fascist movement and subculture relative to the Dear Leader and his or her own inner circle. In that way, the MAGA merchandise functions as a type of fascist uniform.

Are Trump’s sneakers “ugly” and an offense to the sneaker collecting subculture? Sure. But Trump’s MAGA people don’t care. Trump’s sneakers sold out almost immediately upon their release.

Trump’s hats and other clothing have been mocked as being “cheap looking” and “tacky.” OK. But again, Trump’s MAGA people don’t care. The MAGA people continue to buy these things because they make them feel like they belong to something bigger than themselves.

Are the MAGA people who purchased “Trump Bucks” because they thought they were real money and an “investment” gullible and apparently not very bright? Absolutely. But they will remain loyal to Donald Trump even though they were defrauded online by people who took advantage of their love for him. Business Insider provides these details:

Supporters of former President Donald Trump are reportedly being scammed out of thousands of dollars through the sale of commemorative “Trump Bucks” that fraudsters say can be exchanged for real cash.

Several companies are allegedly using advertising tactics including creating AI-generated videos of Trump…. to claim the worthless “Trump Bucks” will make them rich, according to a new report from NBC News.

Some of the people who bought the Trump memorabilia have attempted to exchange it for real US dollars at banks, and told NBC News that bank employees are reporting it as a growing issue. Several companies have been identified for marketing and selling the false currency, NBC News reported, including a number of businesses seemingly based in Colorado with names like Patriots Dynasty, Patriots Future, and USA Patriots.

“President Trump wants you to finally open your eyes and believe in his power for a better tomorrow!” reads a banner message on one of the sites advertising a “TRB Black Card,” which sells as a single card for $90 or packs of up to 10 cards for $500.

As we try to escape the Trumpocene, fortunately, there are a few sharp voices and guides who correctly understand the power of emotion and identity and its role in the Trump MAGA fascist subculture and larger American (and global) fascist movement. We should listen very closely to these guides. In a very insightful essay at the Conversation, anthropologist Alexander Hinton traveled to this year’s CPAC event to better understand the enduring (and alluring) power (and dangers) of Trumpism and the MAGA subculture:

Everywhere I turned, people wore MAGA regalia – hats, pins, logos and patches, many with Trump’s likeness. I spent breaks in the exhibition hall, which featured a Jan. 6 insurrection-themed pinball machine featuring “Stop the Steal,” “Political Prisoners” and “Babbitt Murder” rally modes and a bus emblazoned with Trump’s face. Admirers scribbled messages on the bus such as, “We have your back” and “You are anointed and appointed by God to be the President.”

Those on the left who dismiss the CPAC as a gathering of MAGA crazies and racists who support a wannabe dictator do not understand that, from this far-right perspective, there are compelling and even urgent reasons to support Trump. Indeed, they believe, as conservative politician Tulsi Gabbard stated in her CPAC speech on Feb. 22, that the left’s claims about Trump’s authoritarianism are “laughable.” This is because CPAC attendees falsely perceive President Joe Biden as the one who is attacking democracy.

At the New York Times, Vanessa Friedman locates Trump’s “Never Surrender sneakers” and other such merchandise relative to late-stage capitalism (what philosopher Nany Fraser has brilliantly described as “cannibal capitalism”), criminogenic politics, an American pathocracy, and a culture experiencing a deep crisis of meaning, community, and shared values that is “amusing itself to death”:

[T]he $399 Never Surrender sneakers unveiled over the weekend at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia? They are like a road map to Mr. Trump’s value system and electoral strategy in sartorial form.

Gilded hightops as shiny as the chandeliers at Mar-a-Lago, they have an American flag wrapping the ankle like the forest of flags that spring up behind Mr. Trump whenever he takes a stage. They have red soles made to match his trademark red ties (and the flag) and perhaps as a sly nod to Christian Louboutins and the semiology of luxury footwear. Also, there’s a large embossed “T” on the side and on the tongue.

While they are “bold, gold and tough, just like President Trump,” according to the Trump sneakers website, allowing potential owners to “be a part of history,” they boast zero technical performance attributes. While they have a shape similar to Nike Air Force 1s (get it? Air Force One!), they are unabashed imitations of the original….

Yet the merching of the moment is more dangerous than it may initially appear.

There has been a lot of eye-rolling since the sneakers’ debut, and jokes about the fact that, given the millions of dollars in penalties levied on Mr. Trump in his various civil cases, he has to make more money somewhere. And there was a lot of focus on the boos that met his appearance at Sneaker Con. (To be fair, the sneakerhead community is not the market for the kicks since there’s nothing original about them; it’s the MAGA market.)

It’s easy to get distracted by the sheer absurdity of it all — a former president, selling sneakers!

Friedman concludes:

Despite the fact that, as of Sunday, the website claimed that the 1,000 pairs of numbered Never Surrender sneakers had sold out, leaving the somewhat less exciting T-Red cherry knit sneaks and Potus 45 white knit sneaks available at $199 each, it’s hard to imagine a circumstance in which the shoes provide any meaningful source of income.

What they offer is something else.

Like Mr. Trump’s tendency to turn every courtroom appearance into a form of entertainment that can be used as a campaign op, his effort to commoditize his legal jeopardy is a long-term strategic play. In reducing his indictments to a slogan on a consumer good, he is reducing their gravity.

It’s a form of insidious trivialization, the sort of tactic that plays perfectly in the landscape of late-stage capitalism in which everything is a product for sale. Oh, those old federal charges? They’re not serious; they’re a style choice. He’s transforming indictments into accessories, a language everyone speaks. The more product he sells, the more he makes a mockery of his situation. That’s where the real profit lies.

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Writing at the Nation, Chris Lehmann uses President Biden’s State of the Union address and the Trump regalia worn by some of the Republicans in attendance as a way of assessing the power of the MAGA movement:

The stable of imagery associated with the right-wing Trump insurgency is showing signs of wear and tear. Where Trump-branded messaging and merchandise once had the power to upend establishment mores and expectations, they now feel like the political equivalent of a rock ensemble’s county fair tour: a purely formalist effort to satisfy the nostalgic longings of a diminishing fan base.

What was most telling about Greene’s stunt wardrobe was the date on the hat: Instead of being minted for the looming 2024 general election, it came from Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, which—despite the lies of Trump, Greene, and other MAGA leaders— he lost decisively. And make no mistake: Greene, a perfect specimen of do-nothing right-wing congressional service, lives for these camera-ready moments of political theater. She certainly didn’t descend to the same level of sartorial carelessness back when she dressed as a Chinese spy balloon.

Amazingly, Greene’s get-up wasn’t even the most outlandish clothes-themed show of MAGA sympathies in the chamber. That honor fell to Texas Representative Troy Nehls, who wore a “Never Surrender” T-shirt featuring Trump’s mugshot and displayed a Laken Riley badge of his own on his lapel. To pull the look together, he sported an American flag bow tie. The outfit didn’t evoke a fearless mustering of Real American patriots so much as a Chippendale dancer gone to seed.

Lehman continues:

“Liberal commentators were put off by the vulgar display—which, of course, was part of the point. Democratic detractors of the hat typically fixated on the hypocrisy of its manufacture—like other Trump gear, it was made at least in part from materials sourced in China, the great bogeyman of Trumpian trade tirades and economic-nationalist appeals. But such caviling overlooked the broader, and pointedly inclusive, nature of the Trump campaign’s iconography. Where liberal critics read MAGA regalia as divisive and insular, it actually represented a welcoming gesture from the leaders of a right-wing movement who formerly telegraphed their ideological purity, during the Tea Party’s heyday, by cosplaying as colonial revolutionaries.

But just as Trumpism itself has curdled into a brackish series of glosses on its founding resentments, the MAGA aesthetic has gone sour.”

Donald Trump is 77 years old. He will not be the leader of the MAGA movement and the American neofascist cause forever. But in their obsessive focus on Donald Trump the man and the leader, the mainstream news media and the country’s mainstream political class have overlooked how he represents a force, a type of permission structure for authoritarianism and other antidemocratic values and beliefs that will far outlive him. The Trump merchandise empire will inevitably end but that energy will be transferred to the next Great Leader. At this point, MAGA is a brand, and like most lucrative brands, there will be someone waiting to leverage it for their own purposes.