Making money off of the MAGA crowd is a bipartisan game
Tonight, in cleaning up old tabs.. back in April, I came across an Esquire article about how, during the White House Correspondents Dinner, Trump held a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he used media-bashing to get his supporters riled up. But that isn’t really something we haven’t seen before. I was far more interested in a little sidebar about the vendors who were selling merchandise at the rally.
MAGA apparel saleswoman Audrina Falcone, a 27-year-old from Los Angeles, admitted, when customers were out of earshot, that her employer donates 20 percent of each sale to the campaign of Bernie Sanders, the candidate she voted for in the 2016 Democratic primary.
Which is honestly so subversive that I kind of think people should do it more often… Unless there are others that are already doing it but just aren’t sharing.
Others, of course, are much more nakedly profit-driven.
Another vendor selling Trump merch, an African-American man named Jay, said for him it’s not about politics-it’s about money. “I’m a capitalist, man! A businessman. If I worked at a hotel, would I ask everyone who came through the door who they voted for? No. I’d ask, ‘Cash or credit?’ If you sell cars, you don’t ask, ‘Are you a Republican or a Democrat?’ You say, ‘Do you want a two-door or a four-door?’ Otherwise you go broke.”
On one hand, it’s not like Trump rallies were the only events where he could sell his wares. On the other hand… Like I said, the guy was trying to make money, and he didn’t try to act like he had any other motive. I kind of admire the unvarnished, unabashed entrepreneurial spirit of it all.
Speaking of…
“I don’t know if there’s a place to get the unvarnished truth. I can wake up and watch Fox News and tell how they’re spinning a story one way, and I can turn to CNN and see they’re spinning it the other way,” said Shane Henderson, a metal artist from Manitowoc, Wisconsin. He was peddling his creations-everything from a polished stainless steel Trump head to a sheet metal Jesus in a MAGA hat. “The political drama of the Trump presidency is better than any soap opera-and I profit off of it. Like, when he was fighting with Nancy Pelosi, I created a piece featuring Trump pissing on Pelosi’s head and sold 50 of them.”
Here in Chicago area, we don’t usually get much in the way of political rallies, at least when it comes to national races… But if there is a Trump rally within public transit distance of Chicago, part of me wants to go over there and talk to the vendors, just to see how they really feel.