If you want to read some cutting political commentary, go to the review section of Amazon.com and check under the item “Trump Make America Great Again Red Cap Collectible Ornament.”
It’s unclear whether the tiny red cap emblazoned with US president-elect Donald Trump’s campaign motto is for real. Its 14-karat-gold coating and selling pitch—“This ornament is sure to make any tree stand out”—make it sound like a joke. And it’s unclear you could get your hands on one. The item is currently listed as unavailable, and Amazon says it doesn’t know when or if it will ever be back in stock.
In the meantime, the online retailer is unintentionally providing a rare forum where Americans can humorously vent their residual electoral frustration. Indeed, the ruse of “reviewing” a product somehow makes for less jarring commentary than the raw rants that populate the comment sections of many publications.
Most of the nearly 1,700 reviews are decidedly anti-Trump. The vast majority—90%—give the glittering ornament a single star. Some of them mock Trump’s penchant for superlatives—and his apparently fragile ego.
“Sad!” wrote one customer. “I was expecting a tremendous, tremendous item. I was excited. Bigly. It’s thousands and thousands times worse than expected.”
“Worst ornament, ever! Very thin material, shatters into a million pieces, unless constantly told how bigly you love it,” wrote another one.
Racism was a big theme in many reviews. “Delivery was unsuccessful,” wrote one reviewer. “No matter what address I entered, they kept sending it to ‘The African-Americans, Inner City, USA.’ Attempts to address to me personally and send to my middle class suburban condo were repeatedly ignored. I guess this just isn’t for me.”
“Great bargain!” proclaimed another one. “Came with an entire crate of white hood ornaments.” The downside: “My tree is now on fire.”
There are plenty of accounts from dissatisfied customers complaining about the red cap’s bigoted behavior. It grabbed plum fairies, angels, and cats, and ranked the Virgin Mary on the scale of 1 to 10. In others, it put the three wise men behind a wall, and called Jesus an anchor baby.
Many grumbled that they didn’t even buy the Trump ornament, but were saddled with it anyway and couldn’t return it for four years. “I was one of the two million more people who ordered a different ornament but still received this one,” one of them said.
Other complaints were policy-related: “Mine came with a companion ornament that keeps electrocuting my gay friends. I believe these items are defective,” wrote another. (Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, has advocated for public spending on “conversion therapy,” a controversial treatment meant to change a person’s sexual orientation.)
Another hit Trump on trade: “I bought this ornament, but now we can’t get Christmas presents because it started a trade war with the North Pole after accusing the elves of taking American toy-manufacturing jobs.”
One buyer said he got the ornament for the velvet-lined box it came in “so that I have a place to keep all my broken hopes and dreams.”
To be sure, the hanging red cap had the occasional genuinely positive review, such as this one. “This is a really good ornament to take the place of all the mind blowing dumb ornaments over the past 8 years.”
But other Trump supporters were not amused by the exercise.
“All the negative reviews on here are childish and obscene,” she chided. “Take yourselves to a different country if you don’t want to governed by our new president! At least he wants to try to fix this broken nation.”