Marjorie Taylor Greene used to treat the red MAGA hat as part of her uniform. She wore one inside the House chamber during President Biden’s 2024 State of the Union, turning one of our constitutional rituals into something resembling a souvenir kiosk. On Monday, the former congresswoman shared a photograph of a Tennessee Trump Superstore with a “Going Out of Business” sign out front. “I can’t remember the last time I saw someone wearing a maga hat or Trump shirt,” she wrote.
When Marjorie Taylor Greene starts wondering where all the MAGA hats went, even a Republican Party trained to ignore uncomfortable evidence should take notice. Her observation may also help explain one of the stranger features of Trump’s second term. As his supporters become less willing to display his name, Trump appears more determined to put it on public buildings, plazas and anything else that stays still long enough for someone to attach gold lettering.
The Tennessee store sits along Interstate 40 near Knoxville, where enormous Trump billboards and banners make it almost impossible to mistake for a Pottery Barn. There is also a brick outhouse labeled the “Democrat Superstore,” because apparently the billboards did not sufficiently convey the owner’s politics. Now the remaining merchandise is 50 percent off. The owner, William Hays, confirmed that he is closing because customers stopped coming. An employee said families worried about groceries and electric bills no longer had much money left for Trump shirts.
One store closing does not tell us what every Trump voter believes, of course, and Greene’s impression is hardly a scientific survey. Alongside the polling, however, the disappearing merchandise looks like an early warning about a brand that once spread from the ground up. People spent their own money to put Trump’s name on their heads, lawns, trucks and boats. That kind of voluntary devotion has tremendous political value because it makes a movement appear larger, stronger and more permanent than it may actually be.
Now the movement is operating in reverse. A Trump-controlled board voted to put his name back on the Kennedy Center after a federal judge ruled that it lacked the authority to rename the memorial. The proposed inscription would credit Trump with renovating the building, and the grounds would become “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.” Earlier this year, Trump reportedly offered to release funding for a major New York tunnel project if Chuck Schumer supported renaming Penn Station and Dulles International Airport after him. He is using public power to secure recognition the public is increasingly unwilling to give him.
I do not know what goes on inside Trump’s head, and I have no desire to lease space there. Still, the contrast is hard to miss. The Trump name used to be carried everywhere by people who wanted the world to know they were with him. As fewer people do that voluntarily, he is using the power of the presidency to make public institutions display it instead. You can read that as vanity, which it certainly is, but it also looks like an attempt to replace genuine enthusiasm with government-ordered splendor.
The red hat always did more work than ordinary campaign merchandise. It told supporters that they were surrounded by people who agreed with them. It warned Republican politicians that Trump’s followers were watching and could make their lives miserable. I saw that pressure when I served in Congress. My Republican colleagues would hear from furious callers, see Trump flags throughout their districts and assume that challenging him would end their careers. His most committed supporters often represented a minority of the country, yet their visibility made them seem like the only voters who mattered. Every Republican surrender added to the impression that resistance was futile.
That impression is becoming harder to sustain. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday found Trump’s approval at 33 percent, the lowest point of his current presidency and tied with the bottom of his first term. A staggering 64 percent disapprove. Eighty percent believe American involvement in the Iran war will continue for an extended period, while only one in five thinks the war has been worth it. Voters now trust Democrats more than Republicans on the economy, and the Republican advantage on immigration has fallen from 26 points in January 2025 to two points today.
The country has moved away from Trump faster than Republican leaders have.
An Economist/YouGov poll reached the same 33 percent approval figure. Only 17 percent of Americans strongly approve of Trump’s performance. Among Republicans who do not identify with MAGA, his approval has fallen from 90 percent at the beginning of his second term to 51 percent.
His decline is tied to the distance between the life Trump promised and the one Americans are living. He pledged lower prices and peace. His tariffs raised costs, while his war with Iran disrupted oil shipments and helped send gasoline prices higher. Trump recently told Americans that paying “a tiny little bit more” for gas was worth it. Families struggling to afford groceries and electricity are unlikely to consider the increase “tiny.” A red hat cannot make that math disappear.
Trump still controls the executive branch and most of the Republican Party, and he can do tremendous damage. Yet his image of invincibility has always depended on millions of people reinforcing it for one another. Every supporter who puts away the hat makes it easier for somebody else to speak honestly, and every elected Republican who notices the change loses another excuse for acting powerless.
MAGA still controls the Republican Party, but beyond its walls, the brand is going out of business.
I live on a country road heading out of town, and my neighbor to the south has had an acre-sized Trump banner across his field for nearly the last 10 years. Last week, the sign disappeared. Maybe it finally fell apart ;-D
There was a huge upheaval in Butler County, PA. A seat held for 30 years by the Rs turned blue in a special election! WHOO-HOOOO!