Via the AP: Trump hawks $399 branded shoes at ‘Sneaker Con,’ a day after a $355 million ruling against him.
As he closes in on the Republican presidential nomination, former President Donald Trump made a highly unusual stop Saturday, hawking new Trump-branded sneakers at “Sneaker Con,” a gathering that bills itself as the “The Greatest Sneaker Show on Earth.”
Trump was met with loud boos as well as cheers at the Philadelphia Convention Center as he introduced what he called the first official Trump footwear.
The shoes, shiny gold high tops with an American flag detail on the back, are being sold as “Never Surrender High-Tops” for $399 on a new website that also sells other Trump-branded shoes and “Victory47” cologne and perfume for $99 a bottle. He’d be the 47th president if elected again.
Well, all perfect for President’s Day gifts, no doubt.
From NBC news, here’s a shot of the sneakers:
Seriously, the level of grift here is off the charts and the unintentional self-parody of it all is of such mass that I am shocked a mini-black hole didn’t appear as a result of the product announcement as the whole event simply collapsed in on itself.
As an SNL skit, one would have thought it too silly, and yet here’s reality, yet again proving it wins the absurdity competition.
And while on one level I can’t help but make jokes, the reality is that this is clearly nothing more than a grotesque cash grab aimed at exploiting his own supporters, many of whom will, no doubt, be sporting these monstrosities at the next MAGA rally.
It is yet another in a long string of public self-exposures of Trump’s character. And while it is certainly not the worst of those glimpses by any stretch, it is still telling. If you can look at this and not see the obvious attempt as pure exploitation, then you might be a MAGA. Nobody could possibly believe that the goal here is a real product that a mass audience would want. Like with Trump University, Trump steaks, and any number of Trump-branded products, he demonstrates himself to be no better than a dishonest street merchant selling the equivalent of fake Rolexes to whatever credulous rube he can fool.
And he deserves to be understood and evaluated the same way we look at such hucksters and yet he might yet again become the most powerful person in the world.
