With his approval rating dipping, New Yorkers seem to have lost trust in their mayor Eric Adams. But Mr. Adams is up front about where he’s putting his own trust right now: with God.
On Tuesday, Mr. Adams, who announced that he would be running for re-election not as a Democrat but an independent, appeared at a press briefing wearing a T-shirt with the words “In God We Trust,” printed above an American flag.
“This outfit is not campaigning, this outfit is my life,” Mr. Adams told reporters when asked about the white shirt, which looked to be about as premium as something purchased at a boardwalk souvenir stall.
“I went through hell for 15 months and all I had was God,” said Mr. Adams, alluding to the federal corruption charges that were dropped against him this month.
Mr. Adams is not the only political figure bringing the graphic T-shirt into formal political spaces.
During President Trump’s prime-time address in early March a cluster of Democrats wore slogan T-shirts, providing a cotton-based clap-back to the president’s talking points. A few brandished the recognizable text: “Resist.” Florida representative Maxwell Frost, the first Gen-Z member of Congress wore a tee with the slogan “No Kings Live Here.”
Elon Musk in his role as presidential adviser has brought gamer-bro fashions into the West Wing. In February, as he lectured department heads during the first cabinet meeting of the Trump administration, Mr. Musk wore a dark shirt displaying the words “Tech Support.”
With its blocky font and winky pun, it channeled the visual language of an internet meme. So it was of little surprise that the “Tech Support” shirt became its own meme circulating on X. Similar tees sell on Amazon for $19.
Kamala Harris offered an earlier, recent example of the graphic tee in politics, when last October she wore a tee splayed with “Detroit vs. Everybody” underneath a blazer while campaigning in Michigan. It was a sartorial response to Mr. Trump, who days earlier said “Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president,” referring to Ms. Harris. With the shirt, Ms. Harris notched a viral moment that lived on after her speech.
While supporters have long worn political T-shirts (from “Dew-it-with Dewey” up to “Bernie 2020”), there is a novelty to politicians themselves grasping for graphic tees.
“This is, by and large, a new phenomenon as politicians get more casual, less formal, and as our news culture gets more visual,” said Peter Loge, an associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University.
More Billboard Than Garment
When Mr. Trump threw on that first Make America Great Again hathe ushered in an era of political communication that is loud, literal and often screenprinted.
“The T-shirt says ‘here’s what I stand for, I’m one of you, I get you, come be with me,’” said Mr. Loge.
Mr. Trump has “broken this seal on this idea of politicians, even in their official capacity, engaging in very explicit branding activity,” said Joel Penney, associate professor at the school of communication and media at Montclair State University.
That other politicians favor T-shirts over hats shows how profoundly Mr. Trump has owned the political cap. To wear a slogan hat now would come off too transparently as “doing a Trump.” Internationally, the hat has been contorted with slogans like “Canada is Not For Sale,” sending a message on Trump’s terms.
Still, politicians on both sides of the aisle seem to have learned to speak, and now dress, in his direct, digestible and occasionally disruptive language.
Like a “Make America Great Again” hat, Mr. Frost’s “No Kings Live Here” shirt carried a memorable slogan that could also be interpreted as a wearable shout at the opposition.
“The Democratic T-shirts are a way of expressing anger or frustration,” said Mr. Loge. Mr. Frost shrewdly played up his shirt’s media moment by walking out of Mr. Trump’s speech, allowing cameras to capture the full-text, which was printed on the back of the tee as he made his way up the aisle. The shirt then served as a form of closed captioning of protest.
In today’s cacophonous political landscape, getting a word in — any way you can, even with a trite T-shirt — takes precedence over decorum.
“Media is coming at people so fast and furious that I think that politicians are looking for anything that may gain a little purchase,” said Lori Poloni-Staudinger, dean in the college of social and behavioral sciences at the University of Arizona.
Wearing your words has proved to be one way to cut through. At the 2021 Met Gala, a blowout big-money affair, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York wore an ivory-colored dress with “Tax the Rich” in red paint down the back, sparking days of discourse. During Mr. Trump’s first term, when his wife Melania Trump wore an olive jacket with the words “I really don’t care. Do U?” to visit an immigrant detention center, days of news coverage debated the actual meaning of the jacket.
That the graphic tee is becoming a politician’s tool also shows how X posts and TikTok clips have thoroughly vanquished TV interviews as the medium through which many voters soak up political images and news. Only a few thousand people have watched a YouTube video of the news conference in which Mr. Adams wore the “In God We Trust” T-shirt. But a single tweet about the shirt has been viewed more than 36,000 times.
“If you’re able to convey a message with your T-shirt or something else, then in a way that may capture the imagination of the public for at least a short period of time,” said Ms. Poloni-Staudinger.
Still, said Mr. Loge, this is perhaps the exact level of complexity that today’s voters want their political talking points to come at them.
“We don’t think about politics most of the time,” said Mr. Loge. “And I don’t have to think about a T-shirt. I look at it and I get it.”
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