Merchandise at Vance rally heavy on Trump assassination try, not Harris yet

Jul. 22—Donald Trump-centric memorabilia lined the road where hundreds of Trump and JD Vance supporters stood in wait Monday ahead of Vance speaking at Middletown High School.

Many of the themes were recent. Some new products featured photos of Republican presidential candidate Trump raising his fist after last week's failed assassination attempt. Some shirts had "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" written across the face. Others said, "My president is bulletproof."

Multiple pieces of merchandise were crude in nature, some of them not suitably describable in this newspaper. One portrayed Trump giving the middle finger with the text, "You missed, (expletives)."

There were some Trump-Vance products, but most were about Trump himself. Absent were any products targeting Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now on the verge of being considered the Democrats' presumptive presidential nominee following Joe Biden's Sunday withdrawal from 2024 race and a flood of endorsements from prominent Dems.

When this news outlet asked one button vendor if he had any Harris-centric buttons, he replied, "I'll have to get that to you next time." A bystander suggested there hadn't been enough time to produce new merchandise.

There were products proclaiming "God, Guns and Trump" and shirts bearing Trump's face with the words "Not Guilty," in reference to his recent felony convictions for falsifying business records, in the porn star-hush money trial.

The ever-present Make America Great Again hats were for sale, but so were Todd Gerhart's "Make honey great again" products — small bottles of honey with the top of the bottle molded in the shape of Trump's head.

Still hanging around was now-outdated merchandise targeting Biden, including signs that flatly state, "BIDEN SUCKS" in bold letters, or those that suggest Trump will "take Biden to the train station," or that Biden was being propped up and controlled by his wife and the former President Barack Obama.

Several vendors told this news outlet that they didn't get rid of any Biden merchandise following his withdrawal. One joked that he dumped his Biden stuff off at a rally for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, "because everything is free for Sanders," an avowed Democratic Socialist.