cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/25269065

As surely as Donald Trump sought to cash in on his various criminal indictments, so the former president turned Republican presidential nominee began to sell merchandise commemorating his attempted assassination in Pennsylvania last weekend.

In Butler county on Saturday, a rooftop gunman wielding an AR-15-style rifle fired shots at the stage. Trump was wounded in one ear. One rally-goer was killed and two injured. The gunman, who was killed by a sniper, was discovered to have had an explosive device in his car.

Despite such traumatic events, 45Footwear, a company which has sold $399 golden Trump-branded sneakers, swiftly offered a new range of high-tops.

Rather more pricey than unofficial assassination merch churned out in China, the $299 white shoes were emblazoned with the US flag, an image of Trump with fist raised and face bloodied and the words “Fight Fight Fight” – his instant reaction to being shot.

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Lazy is definitely the right word to describe the designer. What horrid fascist bullshit does a backwards flag with five stars mean?

      • Flax@feddit.uk
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        5 months ago

        It’s not backwards. It’s actually correct vexillology.

        Flags don’t have a right-to-left, they have a hoist (the flagpole half) and a fly (the other half)

        When rendered on print/screen, a flag has the hoist on the left and the fly on the right typically. HOWEVER, when rendered on moving objects, such as vehicles or clothing, the hoist is always at the part facing forward. Mentally draw a flagpole attached to it and figures walking in the same direction the shoe would be walking if someone is wearing it. Then it would make sense.

        Here are some examples:

        Soldier:

        1000043659

        Vehicle:

        A better visualisation of how it would look:

        Even in the UK:

        As for the lack of stars and stripes, no clue. But it could easily just be aesthetic as it would look too crammed with a proper design.

        Overall, it’s still hideous. Lol.

        • barsquid@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Oh, very interesting! Thank you. Of course that makes sense if you imagine the movement. My mistake.

          • Flax@feddit.uk
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            5 months ago

            Glad I can be of help! I’m not overly involved in US politics, but I vaguely recall there being some form of “black US Flag” going about which did have some horrible connotations, so I can sort of see how you jumped to this conclusion that it was some form of dogwhistle 🤣 I cannot find any meaning of a five starred flag either, so my best guess is aesthetic. I thought more would look nice, but maybe that would make the production cost a whopping 11% of $300 rather than 10% 🤣

        • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
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          5 months ago

          Huh, TIL. Thanks for explaining this, I’m probably going to start noticing this everywhere now, and I’ll think of you because of this.