By Braeden Pelton
One of the largest hurdles in working to get an elected position is raising the money to pay for the campaign process. Candidates have to rely on fundraising through loyal voters or from political action committees. But receiving money from groups like this usually comes with a politically based ulterior motive. If a candidate wants to fund their campaign on their own even partially, they usually need to sell merchandise.
What is my point? Well, upon researching the political candidates for my story on last month’s primary election, I stumbled across some rather—interesting commodities being sold on former President Trump’s website. I’ve compiled a list of what I find to be the 10 most out-there products his team has decided to sell.
A short disclaimer, no this list does not represent Trump’s entire store. You can find completely normal campaign merch on his site, along with his non-campaign-related clothing on the website for the Trump Store (albeit for highly inflated rates). Additionally, I have ranked these products on how outlandish, funny and desirable they are, along with how they’ve been presented.
Coming in last at number 10, we have the ‘Legend’ red T-shirt. The shirt has a low-quality image from when Trump paid to get McDonald’s for Clemson University’s football team back in 2019. The photo is grainy and rather hard to see given the size of the image printed on the shirt.
Ninth place brings us to his St. Patrick’s Day specialty apparel. Specifically his shamrock ‘I Love Trump’ tee. Rather simplistic, but I put it above the previous shirt as this one at least has a decent image quality, along with a better concept.
8. ‘Joe Biden Owes me Gas Money’ collection
For the first of many products being sold while mocking or bashing President Biden and his cabinet, I present the ‘Joe Biden Owes me Gas Money’ collection. Available on stickers, shirts and more. Making reference to the low gas prices from when people weren’t driving during the pandemic, Trump’s campaign committee is being too basic with their insult, hence the placement of eighth. (I would like to point out that Biden has only one product line even mentioning Trump on his page).
Seventh place goes to the ’This is TNN’ top. You can’t talk about Trump for too long without referencing his ‘fake news’ tirade so I feel this shirt really belongs on his site. I find the sunglasses to be a nice added touch which raises the shirt’s ranking a bit, but the disdain for reporters that he’s caused keeps the tee from going any higher.
6. ‘Crooked Joe
Nextup is another Biden-related product. ‘Crooked Joe’ is coming in hot at number six. This has one of the better images for his shirts, it’s certainly not nearly as grainy as the ‘Legend’ shirt. I don’t know why, but the image just makes me giggle, especially with the ominous red text hanging over the top.
Our next product sure is something else. With yet another Biden piece, I give you number five ‘Beijing Biden’. I mean, where do I begin? The poorly placed clip art, the oversized balloon, the low-resolution Biden head framed without a neck? I audibly gasped when I saw this one so it gets bonus points just for that.
What’s this another Biden picture on a T-shirt? Fourth place goes to ‘Joe Biden is Unfit’, an image
depicting one of the president’s falls on television, specifically from the Air Force graduation ceremony. Now, before seeing the other items offered on his page, I would have found this shocking and appalling, but I guarantee you there’s worse. I appreciate the deep-fried image, it makes it feel like a meme I’d come across scrolling through social media. It would be my favorite piece of Biden-bashing merch if the image weren’t so small.
Getting into our top three, I give you the mugshot sticker.
Now there are a lot of products that Trump is selling with his mugshot or a variation of his mugshot on it. This is not nearly the best one. The only reason this is so high on the list is because of how poorly photoshopped the ad thumbnail is. It looks like they just dragged a cropped version of the picture over a stock photo of a basic truck. This made me laugh so hard, I really hope the sticker looks just like this because it’s so beautiful.
2.‘Worse Than Warm Royal Beverage Cooler’
Second place goes to our last piece of Biden merch from Trump’s site, the ‘Worse Than Warm Royal Beverage Cooler’ (yes that’s its actual name). This comedic koozie is literally just a meme with product placement attached to it. If I were to see this in a thrift store 10 years from now, I’d buy it hands down. In this case, the image quality only adds to it. I love it.
Honorable Mentions. Sunglasses to Laser Eye, Color-Changing Mug and Laser Eye Head Sign
Now before we get to our winning merchandise, I’d like to bring up two honorable mentions from President Biden’s website. The sunglasses to laser eye, color-changing mug, and the laser eye head sign. The mug would be my favorite if the image after the change wasn’t so poor, but the head signs— now the whole product line is absolutely stellar, but these signs make me cackle. Whoever pitched this design needs a raise as soon as possible because this is just glorious, 10 out of 10.
1.‘Never Surrender Signed Poster’
Our number one spot, the pièce de résistance of Trump’s collection goes to the signed ‘Never Surrender’ mugshot poster. Now I know I had the mugshot on here earlier, but come on. This version of the image, the filter, the tiny signature in the corner, the fact that it’s $28 before fees and taxes. I have no words to truly describe this work of art. This version of the image along with a couple of similarly doctored-up versions are what’s sold on sweaters, shirts and other items. It took the presentation to a whole new level with this specific item though.
This may conclude my list, but please, let me know your thoughts. I’ve created a tier list for others to use for free online, please play around with it and have fun.
