[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
After Charlie Kirk’s murder, two Muslim men in Utah were arrested for planting an incendiary device under a FOX affiliate’s news van. The most striking thing about their house, as Front Page Magazine had reported, was that it appeared to be covered in anti-Trump signage.
Including a black flag reading, “Is He Dead Yet?”
“Is He Dead Yet” merchandise also made a recent appearance when a New York City public school teacher posted a photo of himself wearing that t-shirt and celebrated Charlie Kirk’s death.
In a famously sensitive era, where do you go to buy a “Is he dead yet?” t-shirt or flag? Anywhere as it turns out. Especially from those retailers that have relentlessly censored conservatives.
Amazon had censored everything from books against transgenderism and BLM to banning the sale of the Confederate flag (and even at one point pulling episodes of the Dukes of Hazzard) but you can get a “Is He Dead Yet” flag which the Amazon description openly bills as “an anti-Trump flag” making it clear that it’s not a reference to any other memes with that line.
(The actual Amazon seller is in Eastern Europe, so Amazon is helping a foreign national sell materials to Americans calling for the death of the President of the United States. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post which spent a lot of time warning about foreign interference and foreign disinformation, but its owner actually profits nicely from it.)
Amazon also stocks mugs, t-shirts, stickers and bumper stickers with that phrase that specifically refer to Trump. One ‘Is He Dead Yet’ mug features various possible tombstones for President Trump including “Psycho”, “8647”, “Epstein’s Bestie” and “Rapist”. The same seller also sells Newsom memes including ‘Newsom Was Right About Everything’ merchandise.
Another seller features an orange toupee over the “He”. Others are mock MAGA hats. Some of the Chinese sellers pushing merchandise calling for Trump’s death also responded to Charlie Kirk’s murder by pushing merchandise commemorating his killing to conservatives. Nothing else could or should be expected from China, but it’s Amazon that bears the responsibility here.
So much so that Amazon appears to have paid for Google ads for “Is He Dead Yet”.
Amazon allowed all of this to proliferate on its platform even after two assassination attempts against President Trump and has taken no action to remove it and enforce its terms of service.
Etsy, which had relentlessly censored not only conservatives, but anything un-woke including Dr. Seuss merchandise (after he was deemed racist) and the slogan “I Love JK Rowling”, and recently once again rewrote its TOS to prohibit “degrading language” towards illegal aliens, is awash in every possible variety of Trump death merchandise including mock wine labels and a mug reading “Is He Dead Yet” with Trump’s signature as an EKG line from the ‘resistance’.
“RIP Trump postcards” feature a dead Trump with X’s over his eyes in clown makeup. “It won’t solve everything when he exits this mortal stage, but it will feel f*cking great,” the description reads. An ‘Anti-Trump’ wine label features a skull and the motto “open drink, dance on grave.” There are stickers with an orange toupee on a skull, a “we’ll be grateful when he’s dead” sticker of dancing skeletons, and a scented soy wax candle titled “Smells like his funeral”.
Unlike Amazon, which is dominated by Chinese third party seller spam, Etsy’s sellers are usually authentic American leftists and their products a genuine expression of partisan hatred.
Etsy knowingly allowed this climate of hate to proliferate on its platform in violation of its terms of service which ban “violent language” even while it was cracking down on anything that was in the slightest politically incorrect.
It’s not just Amazon and Etsy. “Is He Dead Yet” merchandise is commonplace on other giant online retail platforms like eBay, and across smaller merchandising sites.
While some of the “Is He Dead Yet” merchandise claims to come from America, the vast majority is being produced in Communist China.
The People’s Republic of China does not actually turn a blind eye toward what it mass produces. Merchandise critical of Xi or the PRC being produced in China is unthinkable and writers trying to get books critical of Communism printed in China have run into problems.
China’s mass production of merchandise calling for President Trump’s death or murder is a decision that would have been made at some point within the Communist Party bureaucracy which maintains extensive censorship over any kind of speech in the giant dictatorship.
And Chinese companies not only produce products celebrating Trump’s death for third parties, but Chinese companies are deeply immersed in the business of marketing these products on their largest retail platforms.
Temu, a Chinese Communist company, has a large selection of “Is He Dead Yet” merchandise specifically targeting Trump. Critics have pointed out that Temu “maintains documented connections to the Chinese Communist Party” meaning that the slogan is being promoted to Americans by a company linked to an enemy regime.
So this is not simply a decision by one Chinese retail platform to stock Trump death gear.
Shein, the second largest Chinese retail ‘fast fashion’ platform used by Americans, also lists “Is He Dead Yet” t-shirts explicitly referencing Trump. Alibaba, one of the world’s largest retailers, has “Is He Dead Yet” t-shirts listed on its AliExpress direct sales platform. “Is He Dead Yet” is not a Chinese information op, but China’s Communist system is happy to promote it.
As are Amazon, Etsy, eBay and other major retail giants that censor conservatives, but empower leftists to celebrate and call for the deaths of Trump and other conservatives.
Charlie Kirk’s murder was marinated in internet memes. These memes are promoted and enabled by a Big Tech system that practices two-tier content policing. The “Is He Dead Yet” merchandise is an example of the kinds of popular leftist memes that make the murder of conservatives into a knowingly hip joke that eventually leads to an assassin’s bullet.
The Left has traded debate and democracy for fantasizing about the deaths of its enemies.
And some leftists do more than fantasize. That is how a bullet clipped President Trump’s ear. It’s why Charlie Kirk is dead. Woke corporations pretend that they had nothing to do with it, but the moment you search their platforms, you find that they were actually profiting from the death cult.
