The Red MAGA Hat

2015

Date: Spring 2015 · Place: Trump Tower campaign store · later worn nationwide · Figures: Donald Trump, presidential candidate · Cali-Fame of Los Angeles, manufacturer · Christl Mahfouz, hat-shop owner who sourced early production · Tags: Garment, Campaign, Trump2016 01. A Hat That Is a Slogan In the spring of 2015 the Trump campaign begins selling a five-panel structured cap in fire-engine red, white embroidery, in caps: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. Twenty-five dollars. Cali-Fame in Carson, California stitches the early runs union-made in the United States, a fact the campaign promotes. Trump wears one to a border-wall visit in Laredo, Texas on 23 July 2015. The image of the candidate in the hat, the hat on the candidate, becomes the campaign's single visual. 02. Wearable Meme The hat works because it is a meme you can wear. The acronym MAGA detaches from the phrase and circulates on Twitter, on 4chan, in headlines. Counter-campaigns adopt the form: pink hats, parodic colors, 'Make America Read Again,' 'Make Orwell Fiction Again.' By 2016 the red cap is shorthand for an entire political coalition, visible at a distance, legible in a single frame, the most efficient piece of political branding since the Obama HOPE poster. Sources • Lauren Collins, 'The Inside Story of the Trump Hat,' The New Yorker, 27 June 2016 • Trump campaign FEC filings, 2015-2016, payments to Cali-Fame of Los Angeles • Know Your Meme, 'Make America Great Again Hat'