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The 2020 Political Merch Wars Have Begun
A red hat changed the game in 2016. Now political swag isn’t just about who you support, but who you are.
On October 13, Anthony Scaramucci, the short-lived, former White House communications director, launched the website Mitt2020.org, dipping his toe in to test the waters of a non-existent presidential run neither he or Mitt Romney had no real stake in. The site only offers one thing: T-shirts with phrases like “Mitt Happens,” “Commit to Mitt,” and “Romney Trumps Trump!” all surprisingly well-designed, with a retro vibe that evokes the 1980s campaigns of Jesse Jackson or Ronald Reagan. Scaramucci, who has pivoted to being an outspoken critic of his former boss, said he created the website in order to “test demand” for the last, kinda-sorta reasonable Republican’s bid for the presidency. The fact that Romney likely will not participate in another failed run for president is beside the point. There’s always money in political merch, even if the candidate is imaginary.
Political merchandising and memorabilia has been a part of American political life for hundreds of years. William Henry Harrison’s 1840 presidential run was one of the first fully branded campaigns, taking the log cabin as its symbol, building pop-up cabins across the country where supporters could buy log-cabin-shaped swag, like oil lamps and china. The campaign pin, newly patented in the 1890s, was hugely popular during the race between Williams McKinley and Jennings Bryan; and in 1948, Democratic candidate Thomas Dewey introduced the first campaign slogan tee, with the phrase “Dew it for Dewey,” which led to the popular “I Like Ike” tee’s that were a hallmark of Dwight D Eisenhower’s 1952 campaign.
But in the Trump era, political merch is more powerful than ever, after the iconic red “Make America Great Hat” became an ideogram in an increasingly politically divisive atmosphere. An advertisement on Google invites me to “Trigger The Libs with a Trump MAGA hat.” In February, a New Jersey teen was arrested for allegedly grabbing an 81-year-old man’s MAGA hat, and throwing him to the ground. The same month, a California teenager sued her school district after she was prohibited from wearing her MAGA hat. The school district claimed she had violated their dress code, which…
