The attempted assassination of Former US President Donald Trump has spawned a frenzy of online merchandise featuring a picture of the US presidential candidate with a raised fist while bleeding from a gunshot.
According to The Washington Post (WP) on Monday, a search for “Donald Trump assassination” on Etsy, an online marketplace for handmade goods, returns over 1000 results, including posters, t-shirts, and hats. Republican supporters and sellers quickly capitalized on the shooting incident involving the former president ahead of the US elections.
One seller promoting a $16 t-shirt on Etsy wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “Impeachment failed, jailing him failed, and even the assassination attempt failed. He cannot be defeated. Just like the price of this product!”
Sellers have designed merchandise with slogans such as “Bulletproof,” “Legends Never Die,” “Grazed but not Dazed,” and “Shooting Makes Me Stronger.”
On Alibaba’s Taobao, a major Chinese e-commerce platform, a T-shirt featuring an image of the former president bleeding from his ear and clenching his fist went on sale just 2 hours and 9 minutes after the image was released.
A bumper sticker sold on the e-commerce site eBay features the bleeding image of the former president with the phrase, ‘He fought for us, now we must fight for him!’.
At noon that day, two of the top-selling clothing items on Amazon were black t-shirts printed with the image of the former president taken from the time of the shooting.
Some of the products are being sold by supporters trying to help the former president’s re-election bid in the wake of the assassination attempt. Conservative YouTuber the Hodge Twins announced on X that “100% of the profits from this shirt will go to the Trump campaign.”
Conservative commentator Candace Owens said on X on Saturday while promoting a related t-shirt, “I’m replacing all my son’s Superman and Batman collectibles with bleeding Trump pictures and statues.”
However, the WP reported that even those far removed from US politics, such as Chinese sellers, are seizing the opportunity to make money by selling t-shirts and related products.
The New York Times (NYT) pointed out that Trump’s supporters are trying to elevate Trump to the state of a martyr, drawing a comparison between the latest t-shirts featuring Trump and those featuring the image of Che Guevara, an icon of the Cuban Revolution, and Chinese leader Mao Zedong. The paper also mentioned that since Trump, as a businessman, has long commercialized his fame and name to make profits, he would not see the latest trend as capitalizing on his sufferings.
However, Washington DC-based lawyer Josh Gerben pointed out that products using the image of the shooting could run into copyright issues. However, Gerben speculated that the Trump camp might produce its own merchandise for campaign fundraising rather than challenge online sales, as it would require a significant effort to stop all online sales.
The Trump camp has previously sold various products, including a t-shirt featuring his mugshot (a record photo of a criminal’s appearance) after he was indicted in Georgia for trying to overturn the election results.
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