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With his approval rating dipping, New Yorkers seem to have lost trust in their mayor Eric Adams. But Mr. Adams is up front about where he’s putting his own trust right now: with God.
On Tuesday, Mr. Adams, who announced that he would be running for re-election not as a Democrat but an independent, appeared at a press briefing wearing a T-shirt with the words “In God We Trust,” printed above an American flag.
Mr. Adams is not the only political figure bringing the graphic T-shirt into formal political spaces.
During President Trump’s prime-time address in early March a cluster of Democrats wore slogan T-shirts, providing a cotton-based clap-back to the president’s talking points.
Elon Musk in his role as presidential adviser has brought gamer-bro fashions into the West Wing. In February, as he lectured department heads during the first cabinet meeting of the Trump administration, Mr. Musk wore a dark shirt displaying the words “Tech Support.”
Kamala Harris offered an earlier, recent example of the graphic tee in politics, when last October she wore a tee splayed with “Detroit vs. Everybody” underneath a blazer while campaigning in Michigan.
While supporters have long worn political T-shirts (from “Dew-it-with Dewey” up to “Bernie 2020”), there is a novelty to politicians themselves grasping for graphic tees.
That other politicians favor T-shirts over hats shows how profoundly Mr. Trump has owned the political cap.
Still, politicians on both sides of the aisle seem to have learned to speak, and now dress, in his direct, digestible and occasionally disruptive language.
In today’s cacophonous political landscape, getting a word in — any way you can, even with a trite T-shirt — takes precedence over decorum.
“Media is coming at people so fast and furious that I think that politicians are looking for anything that may gain a little purchase,” said Lori Poloni-Staudinger, dean in the college of social and behavioral sciences at the University of Arizona.
Wearing your words has proved to be one way to cut through. At the 2021 Met Gala, a blowout big-money affair, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York wore an ivory-colored dress with “Tax the Rich” in red paint down the back, sparking days of discourse.
That the graphic tee is becoming a politician’s tool also shows how X posts and TikTok clips have thoroughly vanquished TV interviews as the medium through which many voters soak up political images and news.
“If you’re able to convey a message with your T-shirt or something else, then in a way that may capture the imagination of the public for at least a short period of time,” said Ms. Poloni-Staudinger.
Still, said Mr. Loge, this is perhaps the exact level of complexity that today’s voters want their political talking points to come at them.
“We don’t think about politics most of the time,” said Mr. Loge. “And I don’t have to think about a T-shirt. I look at it and I get it.”
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