According to souvenir store owners and employees, liberals who once rushed out to buy Ruth Bader Ginsburg bobbleheads or Dr. Anthony Fauci prayer candles, seem to be less inclined to buy political merchandise this season.
Politico senior editor Michael Schaffer published a column Friday describing the current state of the once-hot market for novelty liberal merchandise, noting that people aren’t buying the cutesy depictions of the current crop of Democratic Party heroes as much anymore.
He opened the column with a dry dig at the latest inclusion to the roster of liberal knickknacks: "You know things are starting to look iffy when you get to the Janet Yellen novelty merch."
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He would go on to note just how unpopular President Biden and Vice President Harris souvenirs are now.
Schaffer observed that in many of the local D.C. book and souvenir shops, customers "kept on moving" past the political merchandise on display. He spoke to the "Politics & Prose" bookstore’s Leah Kenyon, the establishment's buyer of "sideline items," who told him "sales of politics merchandise is down in 2023 after a long boom."
She added, "I just sense that people are a little bit deflated and weary. When Trump first came into office, people felt like it could make a difference, but not as much now."
Schaffer added his opinion that the lack of buyer enthusiasm "might also have something to do with the roster of icons on display in the bookstores and gift shops of America’s blue metropolises."
He suggested that the prominent Democratic merchandise figures are passé. "Ruth Bader Ginsburg is dead — and, in some circles, discredited. Anthony Fauci, who for a time generated almost as much impulse-purchase buzz, is retired. Nancy Pelosi is a backbencher again. Abrams was convincingly defeated in her second Georgia gubernatorial run. The Obamas have been out of the White House for seven years. But they’re all still big merch subjects."
He mentioned Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Supreme Court Justice Kentanji Brown merch, and dinged their ability to sell: "Nonetheless, it’s hard to sustain the past decade’s liberal memorabilia craze with this cast of characters."
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Schaffer then spoke to Mike Draper, the founder of progressive T-shirt company "Raygun," who noted that Biden and Harris merchandise really does not sell well.
About Biden, he said, "He’s not a move-merch type, he’s a good manager type," though Harris got the worst of it.
"We [produce] Kamala Harris stuff, which doesn’t sell at all," he declared.
Draper too noted how in the past, "there were a lot of individuals you could make product for." He stated, "I think everything on the progressive side of things kind of peaked last summer with the overturning of Roe. That was the last big thing. It had been one big run kind of starting with the Women’s March."
Kenyon added that she looks to sell positive merch, which the author noted may be why her store is dealing with "tough sledding right now" in the novelty item department. "I try not to have it too much particularly against. I look for more pro- than anti-. There are still a lot of people to admire. But there isn’t a standard-bearer."
