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Hot on the heels of being found guilty of fraud, Donald Trump has presented his next grift, a line of gold sneakers that he launched at The Greatest Sneaker Show On Earth, literally putting the “con” in to Sneaker Con…
The choice of product, shiny gold high-tops emblazoned with an American flag, dubbed “Never Surrender High-Tops” and priced at an exorbitant US$399, seems to be Trump’s flamboyant rebuttal to the financial and legal woes closing in on him. The move comes a day after Trump was ordered by a New York judge to pay a staggering $354.9 million for committing fraud.
And they’re just plain tacky. They are. Thankfully, only 1000 have been made and have already sold out.
According to reports Trump’s arrival on stage at the event, which caters to a more diverse group than he is normally used addressing right down to the wafts of weed coming up from the crowd, was met with a mix of boos and cheers.
This spectacle comes on the heels of a court ruling finding Trump and his close associates guilty of a decade-long scheme to inflate his net worth, misleading banks, insurers, and others. The irony of Trump presenting these sneakers at Sneaker Con, immediately following such a significant legal defeat, is palpable. It underscores a bizarre juxtaposition of Trump’s unyielding entrepreneurial spirit against a backdrop of legal and ethical scrutiny.
But it also reeks of desperation for relevance while at the same time an any-means-necessary method of manipulating money from his followers. His claims of the sneakers being a culmination of a long-held vision come off as not just delusional given the timing, but also as a desperate clutch at relevancy and profit. The presence of younger, more diverse attendees, some inadvertently caught in the spectacle, highlighted the farcical nature of attempting to peddle such extravagantly priced sneakers in the wake of a major fraud conviction.
The real kick is in the fine print however. According to the website dedicated to selling the sneakers, there’s no mention of their manufacturing. The sneakers, touted under Trump’s brand, are in fact not crafted by his organisation but by an entity known as 45Footwear, LLC. This arrangement allows the use of Trump’s name and image, yet sidesteps any direct involvement in the product’s creation. This detail starkly highlights the gap between Trump’s vocal commitments to bringing production back to American soil and the reality that none of his branded merchandise, including these sneakers, follows suit in honouring that pledge.
