On Tuesday, when Vice President Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz as her running mate in her bid for the US presidency, she commemorated him with sharing a video In the video, she calls the governor of Minnesota and asks if he would like to join her campaign. In the video, she appears wearing a T-shirt, khaki pants, white sneakers and a camouflage baseball cap.
In politics, this is known as “appealing to the base” — looking like an average (but electable) American. To pop culture fans, this was known as “appealing to Chappell Roan fans.” For the past year, during the singer’s meteoric rise, Roan has been selling camouflage caps with “Midwest Princess” inscribed in orange block letters. Once Walz officially joined the ticket, the campaign began selling a similar cap with “Harris Walz” inscribed on it.
Soon, everyone wanted to know: Have you seen Chappell? this?
She finally did it. Later on Tuesday, she posted an image on X-rated that showed a comparison of her hat to the Harris campaign hat. with the subtitle “Is this real?”
Indeed, that was the case, and according to reporting from According to my colleagues at Teen Vogue, the 3,000 hats that were initially made sold out within 30 minutes. More than $1 million worth of the hats have already been sold, officially making them a liberal status symbol. (Harris’s campaign later reported to the outlet that 47,028 Harris-Walz camouflage hats had been sold, raising $1,878,524.) As the hat and its similarities to Roan’s products began to spread, the jokes came to life.
“This is the Bushwick x Los Feliz unity our nation needs,” wrote Podcast and TV personality Desus Nice, referring to the trendy enclaves of New York and Los Angeles, respectively. Wall Street Journal technology columnist Christopher Mims shared Roan’s tweet in Threads saying: “Chappell Roan’s post about the Harris-Walz camouflage cap is something of a Gen Z brainchild.”
You say “home,” others say “take back the narrative.” Yes, the hat could be a subtle (or not-so-subtle) attempt by the Harris-Walz campaign to gain Roan’s support. When President Biden was still running for reelection, she had refused a chance to play a Pride event at the White House, and perhaps the hat was a move to make her reconsider. (A representative for Roan did not respond to a request for comment.) It could also be an attempt to make camo do for Harris-Walz what red has done for Donald Trump.
In the years since Trump began wearing them, the red Make America Great Again cap has become a symbol not only of Trump’s campaigns for the US presidency, but also of the values that he and the Republican Party stand for. Red caps became symbols, memes in and of themselves. Kanye West I was wearing one to the White House; supporters wear them at rallies.
The language of the MAGA hat also became translatable. The Strand bookstore in New York made a line of hats that read “Let’s Make America Read Again” (albeit in white); in 2020, LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers They wore red caps that said “Make America Great again “Arrest the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor.”