Reason # 33: Merchandise
Why do we need to defeat Donald Trump and ensure that a Democrat occupies the White House?
We have previously discussed multiple catastrophic failures in Donald Trump’s heralded business career, including busted casinos, a bogus university, a crashed airline, a flattened football team (and league) and a bicycle race where the wheels came off. Today we will look at smaller enterprises, foolish adventures in merchandising various and sundry consumer products.
Let’s start with beef. Rich guys just love expensive steaks. Check out the menu at Baltaire in Los Angeles, where you can get a Waygu tasting for only $195. How could you go wrong selling steaks to fellow billionaires? Somehow, Donald managed to. Where’s the beef? Why at the Sharper Image, where else. I am sure that you do all of your butcher shopping there. In any case, reviews of cost and quality were awful, and the product was dropped by Sharper Image after two months.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/anecdote-donald-trumps-failed-steak-204800549.html?guccounter=1
If you invested with Donald in 2016, and were thereby very short on cash, you could drop in at the Wiener’s Circle in Chicago for a down-market repast, the 3-inch-long Trump “footlong” for only $2.69. Hungrier? They also offered “The Package” and the “PAC” featuring multiple footlongs.
This Trump product, which reportedly sold well, was a spoof based upon Donald Trump’s inflated self-assessment of his manhood, (recently deflated by one Stormy Daniels during an interview with Jimmy Fallon.).
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/anecdote-donald-trumps-failed-steak-204800549.html
But what should the windy city diner wash down his footlong with? Why a can of Chinga tu Pelo, blond ale from local 5-Rabbit Cerveceria brewery, of course. This is yet another example of Donald not only ruining a potentially profitable business association, but of kickstarting a business intent on ridiculing him.
5 Rabbit blond ale was initially the house beer at the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago. Weeks later the Donald began slandering Mexicans as rapists. Smart, classy move. The Latinx owners of 5-Rabbit immediately stopped selling cerveza to Trump but were stuck with oceans of blond ale. Local bars started selling it citywide in sympathy and in 2019 it was rebranded as “Chinga tu Pelo” beer, translated as “fuck your hair” that became a wildly popular product. The hair style depicted on the beer can leaves no questions as to who’s hair is to receive the lewd attention.
https://www.esquire.com/food-drink/drinks/a34533591/chinga-tu-pelo-beer-latinx-vote-election-2020/
What if you were in the mood for a stiffer drink? Well, you could always order a shot of Trump vodka. Wait though, sorry, Trump vodka had already gone out of business by 2011.
The Trump vodka story, as told by Wikipedia, starts in 2005, when Trump marketed the hooch in collaboration with Drinks Americas using the slogan “success distilled” and a promise that the “Trump and Tonic” would soon become America’s drink. But why not go international? Apparently following the wise strategies of “bringing coal to Newcastle”, and “selling tea to China”, Trump planned to sell 50,000 cases of vodka a year – to Russia.
As usual, Trump’s business partners suffered. The bottler for the product had to melt down a half million left over bottles.
https://www.esquire.com/food-drink/a25361024/trump-vodka-ebay/
If you just can’t live without a sip of Trump vodka, I found a bottle of the good stuff, “Trump Super Premium Vodka” at kegnbottle.com for only $5,999, today. Curiously, today a search on Amazon retrieves no vendors for Trump vodka.
At those prices, you might just have to settle for Trump Spring Water, but that’s another astonishing tale of failure and ridicule.
https://www.indy100.com/politics/trump/trump-water-company-ice-ohio
OK, so you are planning on a festive night out in Chi town, for footlongs and pale ale at Wiener’s Circle. What will you be wearing? Best stay with the theme and represent with Trump branded apparel. Starting from the ground up, what better than a pair of Trump “hightops” currently selling on Ebay between $250 (in white) and ”Never Surrenders” (in gold) for only $4,999,99. If you are willing to wait, purchase the “Fight, Fight, Fight” model for $8,000, coming soon.
Now it’s time to don (or Don) some duds (pun intended) from the Donald J. Trump Collection. For example you can buy a DJT Collection tie, originally priced at $150, now on deep discount for $39. That’s because Donald also cratered out his deal with Macy’s to sell a men’s clothing line with his reprehensible remarks about Mexicans.
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/style/mens-fashion/news/a6584/donald-trump-suits/
Today we have just scratched the surface of Donald Trump’s brand name merchandising. Currently, he has more than two hundred brands -, the large majority in, of all places, China!
If Donald Trump can routinely recklessly self-destruct his own businesses, think what he might do to our nation. Chicago’s Barack Obama reminded us last night that “The sequel is usually worse.”
Have a heart; use your mind, search your conscience, and vote for Democratic candidates – across the ballot – on November. 5th.
Please share this message with your friends and please, add your thoughts, to expand upon what are only brief sketches here.
Fred Grannis
August 21, 2024