When Kamala Harris tapped Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) for the vice presidential slot on the Democratic ticket, the faux folksy politician was sitting in an easy chair wearing a black t-shirt, khakis, bright white sneakers, and a camo hat. Teen Vogue says he was “projecting, wittingly or not, those same everyday-person values the Republican Party has desperately tried to claim.”
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I guess Teen Vogue is too stupid to realize that the image of Walz was carefully and deliberately crafted to impart the exact message the Harris campaign wanted to send out. This is a modern presidential campaign, not some teenage version of a run for the class president.
Teen Vogue is trying to create a fashion trend by claiming that Walz’s “folksy” attire somehow made a statement about Democrats and liberals.
Hey! We’re not a bunch of snobby, elitists who look down our noses at the way folks in flyover country act and dress. We’re hip! We’re cool! We’re just like you! We wear camo hats!
“That’s where Walz has a fashionable — or perhaps helpfully unfashionable — advantage,” writes Fashion writer Derek Guy in Politico. “With his flannel-lined LL Bean barn coats, scuffed work boots, and woodsy camo caps, Walz is one of the few male politicians who looks normal in the kind of unpretentious clothing many voters prefer to wear themselves.”
Of all the nonsense that’s come out of this campaign, this tops it all. The camo hat as a challenger to the red MAGA hat? Please.
Now, young people are not only claiming it, they are changing its meaning. Where the camo cap was a symbol of conservatism, particularly because of its association with guns and the military, it now represents a different kind of freedom. Walz’s version of freedom is where you can live in a small town and “mind your own business” about what others want to do with their bodies and lives. Or Chappell Roan’s, where you can come from a small town and maintain that aspect of your identity alongside being part of the “pink pony club.”
While the Trump campaign also sells a camo hat, its weight isn’t the same. They have their sartorial symbol already. The camo hat might just be the one that breaks through for the Democrats, who haven’t had the simple signifier of shared values.
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Most liberals of any age wouldn’t be caught dead in a camo hat. Its close association with guns and the military disqualifies it from consideration as a fashion accessory for the overwhelming percentage of left-wingers. Who cares if some old codger from Minnesota wears it in public? If they knew he was pro-hunting they’d drop him like a hot potato.
If Teen Vogue and Monsieur Guy really believe that a camo hat worn by a leftwing governor is going to challenge the primacy of the red MAGA hat or even approach its popularity, they need to be schooled.
The initial run of 3,000 hats sold out in less than 30 minutes, and the campaign has rung up more than $1 million in hat sales since the merch dropped Tuesday. Thousands more hats are on back-order until October. Sales of the hats benefit the Harris Victory Fund.
No one knows how many MAGA hats have been sold. It’s easily in the tens of millions and perhaps tops 100 million. The Trump campaign won’t estimate how many have been sold, because according to USA Today, “most MAGA hats are not sold by the campaign but by online and street vendors.”
When liberals start making camo hats a fashion statement that literally everyone is wearing (like everyone wears MAGA hats) they can boast all they want.
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