This summer, I’ve come to learn two things about the Trump family: They really love water sports, and they have a knack for wearing hideous merch. Both were demonstrated on Tuesday by Lara Trump, Eric Trump’s wife, who was spotted paddleboarding off the coast of Rhode Island sporting a “Gulf of America” trucker hat.
Earlier this year, Lara’s father-in-law, Donald Trump, signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America“ in order to, in his words, “restore American pride.” On the one hand, this is exactly the kind of political absurdity that Trump has always embraced; on the other, it’s a racist dog whistle that reflects the cruel anti-immigration stance of his administration. Despite being wildly unpopular — Marquette University released a poll back in February that found 71 percent of respondents opposed renaming the body of water — the order seems to have made its way onto Google Maps and survived a House vote, though the rest of the world has not followed suit.
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Putting all that aside, slapping a body of water onto a piece of merch feels particularly strange. Would you wear a hat that says “the Nile River” or “the Pacific Ocean”? Probably not.
Lara, who recently cemented her spot in the Republican pantheon by scoring a Fox News gig, is no stranger to loud merch. She has her own line of apparel, but it veers more toward ombre workout co-ords than MAGA trucker hats. My guess is that she’s either looking to make a brand pivot or she’s spent far too much time shopping at novelty T-shirt stands.
