“Basket of Deplorables”
“Grab her by the pussy!”
“She’s a nasty woman.”
“We’re gonna build a wall!”
“What’s Aleppo?”
This was best of times for T-shirt designers while it was the worst of times for the rest of us, and it’s all coming to an end. With just mere weeks before election day, this historic campaign cycle has yielded an immeasurable treasure trove of quips, phrases and just really stupid words tied together that were so easy to just slap on a shirt and make a few bucks.
Fans of the free market economy were overjoyed, as screenprinters around the nation reared up to make the best and worst shirts for all political backgrounds available. If you wanted to go to a Trump rally with a shirt that said, “Jail her and nail her,” you could. If you wanted to go to a Hillary rally with a shirt that said, “I’m voting for someone who isn’t a complete moron,” you could! If you wanted to go to a Gary Johnson with a shirt that said, “Wait, where am I?” you could!
You could basically get anything you wanted and do anything you wanted, except for vote for the person you really wanted as president, because he wasn’t allowed to play with others.
Even the Green party had a great shirt that sold in droves, with “I’m with her. No, the other her.”
All of this, however, will be over very soon and the shirt sales will plummet. Back they will go to bootlegging aging rock bands shirts and selling them for 10 dollars at least 300 feet away from the venue. Back they will go to making shirts of both teams for the Super Bowl and hoping they can sell enough of them before the game, so they aren’t stuck with too many shirts from the losers.
The fun is over. The golden age of printing cash has come to a screeching halt and all the Tee shirt creators are sighing and crying over the dry spell that will now commence.
But there is a glimmer of hope. Depending on whoever becomes president, they will at least be able to continually print things that mock our new president in fabric. The phrases will be limited and it will be more like actually being part of an activist movement, but shirts will be sold. All is not lost, folks. All is not lost.