CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Helping to Make America Great: The TRUMP Store

Image by Natilyn Hicks.

Last year, I wrote an article with the title “Our Free Enterprise System Comes Through Again: The Trump Store” about the store and its offerings. I recently developed an urge to revisit the store’s big, beautiful online site.

Much of what is sold by the TRUMP Store is for those with extra money to spend to fulfill their need to engage in excessive consumption while paying a premium price for items, many of which, even those for children and pets, are plastered with Trump’s name.

There is some great news on the inflation front. Many products that were “affordable” a year ago remain just as affordable today. The red baseball cap with the white MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN (MAGA) is still being sold for $55 plus $9.99 shipping. One working at a federal minimum wage job earning $7.25/hour would be able to purchase the hat after putting in the same number of hours (probably around ten after deducting social security and Medicare taxes and possibly paying sales taxes on the purchase) as was required during the previous year. Since last year, if this person is now receiving a deserved pay raise, then fewer hours of work would be required to cover the costs of this hat, representing a fine example of what makes America so great.

A minimum wage worker could afford the hat after working about one hour less by going to Amazon to buy it for $47. Weird that the Trump Store would allow Amazon to sell one of its products for almost 15% less, but great for MAGA consumers who seek to have the honor of helping a person wealthier than Trump become even wealthier. Perhaps the TRUMP Store is willing to make this “sacrifice” given the $40 million Bezos lavished on Melania. Furthermore, the New York Times reports that Bezos has been praising Trump declaring his second presidency is “more mature, more disciplined” and in a CNBC interview, he said “Trump has lots of good ideas, and he’s been right about a lot of things.” What “things” does Bezos think Trump has “been right about,” and, perhaps, more importantly, not right.

More good news from the TRUMP Store: MAGA hats for sale do not exclusively come in red. Among the diverse (as in DEI) offerings in addition to red, are black ones, white ones, and yellow ones,........

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