At 3:55 a.m., Sally Noedel sat up toiling over her craft table, bent over a 7-inch Trump voodoo doll made well over 2,000 times. “I think I’ll be doing this for a while,” she said.
Noedel is one of many small online entrepreneurs who capitalizing — begrudgingly — on American politics. On Jan. 28, Gallup reported that 51 percent of Americans disapproved of Trump, the lowest approval rating for an incoming president since Gallup began polling. That’s not just a political statistic. It’s a business opportunity.
“I believe most entrepreneurs will try to exploit any opening in the marketplace possible, political or otherwise,” says Jacob Lyons, who sells shirts online, including several “Not My President” tees. “The Trump issue, however, is unique in that there aren’t many issues that have such a polarizing effect.”
Lyons, who has been selling political shirts throughout the elections, says business has been consistently good, but orders especially spike when Trump does something controversial. “In the aftermath of various news events, we can’t print them fast enough,” he said.
Despite the political polarization, online entrepreneurs say the feedback for their anti-Trump merchandise has been overwhelmingly positive, perhaps because it’s a self-selecting clientele. “Of course we have had a few remarks that would make a sailor blush,” said Lyons, echoing several other merchants we interviewed.
Though many of these online entrepreneurs explicitly oppose Trump, his election, inauguration and presidency provided an unexpected windfall.
Joey Horne, an Etsy retailer, sold mostly Bernie Sanders decals and stickers during the election, saying he saw little interest in pro-Hillary merchandise. But since Trump won, he said, “the anti-Trump decals have gone through the roof.”
His offerings include a decal of Trump’s face that customers can stick inside a toilet bowl. Demand was strong through the holidays and hasn’t abated. Horne says he’s had customers place bulk orders and pay for expedited shipping to ensure the anti-Trump decals arrived by Inauguration Day.
“Every day when the orders come in, I still shake my head at the amount of anything anti-Trump that is selling,” Horne said. “I intended to just sell a few decals for fun. Providing all the decals to fill all the anti-Trump sells is consuming my whole life right now. Yes, I enjoy counting the orders that come all hours of the day, but my personal life is gone since the election.”
Brad Saltzman, one of the founders of Not My President Candy, says he’s been shocked by the number of bulk orders 1.75-ounce chocolate bars with wrappers that include Trump’s face and the words “narcissist,” “racist,” “sexist” and “liar.”
Saltzman and his partners began offering the candy bars just two weeks ago, and already, they’ve sold more than 1,100, with their average order placed for 12 bars. They’ve never received a request for just one bar; to date, the smallest purchase has been for four.
Not My President Candy Bars gives 30 percent of its sales to liberal nonprofits, including Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the Sierra Club.
Other anti-Trump entrepreneurs have taken a similar approach, promising their clients that they’ll give at least part of their revenue to charity.
Kate Dobson, who makes Trump-scented candles with her husband, donates $3 for every purchase to nonprofits supporting refugees. By the end of 2016, that added up to more than $2,500.
“It sells pretty well for something we make in our laundry room in our spare time,” she said. Dobson’s company, which also offers satirical Vladimir Putin fan fiction and candles, only began offering Trump candles a few days before the election, assuming demand would evaporate soon after.
“The day after the election, we started getting pinged by people asking that we put them back on sale,” she said. “We hate making the Trump candles because cutting out the hair is a huge, hairy pain, but we decided to resume.”
Though Dobson says she and her husband aren’t getting rich off the sales, business has been good enough that they’re already looking toward the next political project: a humor book about the U.S. presidents, written like a teen heart-throb magazine. It’ll hit shelves around January 2018, as Trump completes his first year in office.
