kitsch selling
Sometime during the first two years of the Barack Obama presidency, A guy I was sitting next to offered some minor approval of the president. To which the other guy I was sitting next to let out a voice of disappointment and said, “I’m sorry, but” before marching into his firm worldview where anyone with support of the president was a dupe of manufactured hype from some oligarchical forces — “he was sold you you, and probably all presidents here on out are going to be such creations. Look. Do you remember anyone else who all these t-shirts and merchandise out there?”
There was John Kennedy, but that example probably just proves his point to him. Mostly we dissolve into a lucrative anti-president kitsch business.
From his stated perspective, he should love the current president, as Biden supporters barely care about him. He has affected an ice cream eating tic, and the one Biden fan internet meme — “Dark Biden” — is practically self aware in its metas. No Biden t-shirts in the offing.
His stated favorite was Mitt Romney, a man I never much disliked and where my lack of dislike would be taken as a slight by the supporters of the next president. His statement of support harkened to how Romney “saved the mess that was Utah’s Olympics corruption scandal”– a thing that I always thought was just the shuffling around of papers and declaration that the thing was solved — it succeeded by decree and because profits demanded it succeed. In that way it is like Trump’s celebrated comebacks from Bankruptcy — Trump had made his name brand an aura of success and his creditors needed to go with the line to maximize profits from that brand.
I was thinking on this with Trump’s introduction of… Trump Superhero trading cards virtual or coin or I honestly don’t know what it is. The thing about the Obama kitsch merchandise drive was it was removed from the presidential candidate — Shephard Fairey designed his famous poster not directed by the Obama campaign. Trump, meanwhile, after his white house term and at least ostensibly seeking a new term drops this atcha. I have no idea what that Romney supporter thought of President Trump, but I do hope, from his stated premise, he deemed the same problems with Trump and Trump supporters as he did with Obama — except on steroids and to an nth degree.