On Feb. 17, 2024, former U.S. President and current Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump made an appearance at the Philadelphia Convention Center for the city’s iteration of Sneaker Con, a yearly event focused on streetwear and sneakerhead culture. His purported mission at this event was to promote the now-sold-out $399 “Never Surrender High-Top Sneakers.” The former president was met with a combination of cheers and jeers as he took the podium in the democratic stronghold of Philadelphia, where Democrats outnumber Republicans seven to one, and held up his shiny metallic and gold-emblazoned sneakers, complete with an American flag at the ankle and a “T” plastered on the outside of the shoe, right where a Nike “swoosh” would be. Trump’s actual mission was twofold — clearly, he intended to sell sneakers, which he did with great success. But when analyzed more deeply, Trump’s visit was also another installment in a long history of the right’s attempt to appeal to youth culture and corral their support in a language young people understand.
The Republicans’ solution to their unpopularity among young people is simple: try to relate to young people in any way they can. Conservative YouTube rapper Tom MacDonald is an example of the right desperately trying to market its ideas to a generation that seems increasingly disillusioned with conservative ideas. MacDonald’s recent music video featuring conservative political pundit Ben Shapiro has amassed 17 million YouTube views in just 45 days. The song juxtaposes itself as a conservative response to “woke” culture, heavily criticizing the Democratic party, progressive social movements and mainstream hip-hop culture — containing references to cancel culture, pro-choice activism and the discussion of drug use in mainstream rap music. Conservative and regressive political attitudes are frequently being spread with a unique twist specifically geared towards Gen Z on familiar and trusted platforms in pursuit of the youth vote. The right then uses these spaces they have inserted themselves into to spread and normalize political ideologies that orient themselves against progressivism and in favor of a vitriolic and regressive approach to politics that causes immeasurable harm to society’s most vulnerable groups.
Trump attended Sneaker Con to fundraise, but he also attended the event to appeal to the young people he often alienates with his rhetoric: young Black male voters. It’s no mistake that the subcultures both MacDonald and Trump have decided to infiltrate — hip-hop and sneakerhead culture — are most widely associated with Black culture in America. Hip-hop already has a problem with toxic masculinity, and many artists have carved out a niche by combatting the hegemony of hypermasculine hip-hop culture. The former president does not have any intention of dismantling the hegemony of toxic masculinity. Trump frequently uses the imagery of toxic masculinity and paints himself as a hypermasculine protector of tradition and the nuclear family in an attempt to target and gain the loyalty of young men who have become disillusioned with progressive societal forces.
Amid election season, the former president and his supporters, such as MacDonald, seek to bolster his standing specifically among young Black male voters in constituencies like Delaware County, the home of Philadelphia, where Trump lost by a margin of 26.8% in 2020. Trump has made rehabilitating his image among Black male voters an important part of his campaign agenda for 2024, even using his indictments in a ham-fisted attempt to boost his credibility among Black voters. When Trump walked into the Philadelphia Convention Center on Feb. 17, he did so to spread his toxic brand of masculinity and hopefully gain the support of the young men in the crowd. The crowd at Sneaker Con is made up mostly of teenagers and young adults who buy, sell and trade with one another. Often, these are high school and college students looking to make extra cash on the side while still in school. When Trump walked into that convention center, his words entered the ears of impressionable young people with goals and aspirations of wealth and success — two things Trump has built his brand on.
It may seem silly: the 77-year-old former president holding up a grotesque and shoddily designed gold sneaker with an equally ugly gold-stamped American flag in a desperate attempt to court the votes of people he previously overlooked. But silliness aside, Trump’s use of clothing and footwear as a form of identification among his supporters is nothing new among right-wingers. European right-wing extremist groups frequently identify one another by their brazen and bold clothing, sporting aggressively masculine graphics rife with dog whistles, hate symbols and fascist slogans. In the age of the internet, hidden messages and meanings provide easy ways to differentiate between those who “get it” and those who do not. Right-wing extremists, just like most juvenile social circles, operate as a series of cliques and loosely affiliated groups who use identifiers such as fashion preferences, word choice and music taste to quickly discern who is and is not a part of their group.
In America, extremist fashion has not caught on quite as much as it has across the pond, but evidence from the increasing number of neo-Nazi and extreme-right rallies appearing across the nation show that the right-wing extremists of the United States don’t lag too far behind their fascist European counterparts when it comes to fascist extremist fashion. Both the Republican party and the white nationalist extremist groups of Europe prey on the “crisis of masculinity” sweeping across the United States and Europe. Right-wing movements target the insecurities instilled in young men by the same regressive visions of masculinity they support, offering a solution for this “crisis of masculinity” in exchange for political allegiance. Trump’s co-opting of a non-partisan national symbol — the flag of the United States — is not a far cry from the co-opting of national symbols by twentieth-century European fascist movements.
Young people are being targeted by groups working against progress and in favor of discord in the spaces they hold near and dear. Trump’s sneakers are nothing new and, goofy imagery aside, shine a light on an uncomfortable truth in the worlds of music, fashion and digital media.
Daily Arts Writer Rose Iorio can be reached at iorio@umich.edu.