Kamala Harris wants America to know she is speaking, and we all might be seeing that message on T-shirts, buttons and signs sooner rather than later.
I drove from West Virginia to Wisconsin and back last week, coursing through 9 states, some blue, some red, some swing. In my 24 hours of driving, I saw Trump signs all over the place, but not a single Biden-Harris sign or bumper sticker. Not one.
In many cases, what I saw weren’t just yard signs, but giant ‘Trump 2024’ or ‘MAGA,’ flags, even huge, Clark Griswold-style front lawn displays to leave no doubt about the intensity of the residents’ support for Donald Trump.
This is an old and treasured way of reading political tea leaves. It is also deeply unscientific, but in this case the gap in visible support is so overwhelming that it stands out and now suddenly leads us to wonder if Kamala Harris can begin to close it.
Now, to be fair, there has never been a politician who moves merchandise like Donald Trump. In towns across America, there are Trump pop-up stores on the side of the road. I’ve talked to a lot of the people who run them, including one recently in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
Many of these entrepreneurs originally followed Trump rallies in 2016 and 2020 much the way merch peddlers used to follow the Grateful Dead.
‘Now I can do it just about anywhere,’ the seller in West Virginia told me.
It speaks to the very personal connection that many Trump supporters feel towards the man himself, something that even Americans who think Biden has been a good president just don’t display towards Joe. Could it be different with Kamala?
To get a sense, I did some snooping around Amazon. In just the last three days since her announcement, there are several Harris 2024 shirts that have sold over 1,000 units in the past month. The most popular Biden-Harris shirt maxed out at 300 for the whole month.
There are dozens of Trump shirts for any occasion on Amazon that run circles around these sales, but even a modest uptick in people who want to rep the Democratic nominee in their fit seems like a good thing for Harris and something her camp will want to grow.
The last Democrat to have an impressive merchandise footprint was Barack Obama. Trust me, I lived in Brooklyn during his presidency and the Shepard Fairey ‘Hope’ poster almost seemed mandatory, or like it just came pre-hung in every apartment.
And a slogan is emerging for Harris, as well. Many of the top-selling signs, posters and wearables feature the phrase, ‘I’m Speaking,’ a reference to Kamala clapping back at old, White man Mike Pence in the 2020 vice presidential debate.
This is starting to look like the beating heart of Kamala’s campaign, the strong Black woman speaking truth to the power of Donald Trump and alleged white supremacy. It’s blatant nonsense, but it looks a lot better on a T-shirt than ‘Not a joke,’ or ‘I mean it, Jack!’
And ultimately, this is exactly why Democrats wanted this change. They needed a new story to tell, and now they have their favorite story full of racism and sexism and white privilege. Oh my.
For many conservatives, this message seems to be, ‘Shut up, a Black woman is speaking!’ and comes off as insufferable. But they’d better get used to it, because Democrats will try to make it as ubiquitous as the red MAGA baseball cap. Or at least as close as they can.
We can only pray that things remain civil as now both sides prepare to wear their political passions quite literally on their sleeves.
And that brings me to the most powerful sign I saw on my journey to and fro halfway across the continent. Just outside Butler, Pa., I observed an electronic billboard on the highway with the image of Corey Comparatore, who was killed while attending a political rally.
It reads in part, ‘In loving memory, of a special man who gave everything for his family, beliefs and country!’
That is a sign I wish every American could drive past, one without snark or cynicism, a simple reminder that the nation remains in the people’s hands, and that no matter who wins, what really matters is that we live together with respect and in peace.