The One Where I Go to the Trump Store

The holy trinity of commerce, politics, and homemade Donald Trump slippers

With Donald Trump in town on Wednesday, I thought it was high time that I went to the Trump Store.

Located in a strip mall, our closest outlet is one example of a kind of micro-chain here in northeastern Pennsylvania. It's difficult to find online and doesn't seem to be connected with the official Trump Store nor the one in exurban Philadelphia. Instead, our local branch appears more like a pop up Halloween store or the brick and mortar version of a boardwalk t-shirt booth, which also offers voter registration.

What interested me in going was how this store seemed to be indicative of Trump's campaign, which has eschewed a traditional ground game for something along the lines of the marketing of a Hollywood movie, using merchandise and name recognition as marketing. As of late August, Harris had opened her 50th campaign office in Pennsylvania. Trump only had five. As Tim Alberta wrote back in July, Trump gutted the voter outreach side of his campaign to focus on "election integrity," a continuing effort to stoke his own ego about losing in 2020. This has left him to deputize other groups like Charlie Kirk's Turning PointUSA and now Elon Musk, I guess, to turn out the vote. Resorting to third party groups or Musk's voter payola is a bold (if it works) and stupid (if it doesn't) strategy.

It hasn't only been in the area of voter outreach, though, that Trump's campaign has dodged the ordinary duties of a presidential campaign. Going up all around us are billboards and signs funded by PACs and even billboards funded by individual donors. One on a local highway shows Trump, bloodied from the assassination attempt in Butler, PA, and the words "Fight! Fight! Fight!" The billboard was funded by a veteran. The PAC billboards are a direct result of Citizens United and are often impossible to trace.

The individually donated spaces, on the other hand, can seem a bit odd. One that I recently saw just said "Donald Trump Endorsed by Kanye West." It made me wonder if the individual knew of West's multiple attempts to run for president, much less his name change to Ye. And while the effectiveness is questionable. Honestly, there's so much political advertising here, one after the other, that nearly nothing breaks through. I could see the benefit of individuals who are willing to put their money behind buying up ad space for Trump. It's a clear step beyond the sort of yard sign political signaling that might impress folks.

Officially unaffiliated with the campaign, these Trump Stores appear to be the same sort of thing--a reflection of personal politics combined with a gritty guerrilla capitalism.