What People Are Getting Wrong This Week: Do Trump Fans Really Wear Diapers?
I don’t like writing about Donald Trump and I definitely don’t want to write about his damn diapers, but one of the most common (probable) pieces of misinformation this week is about the ex-president’s diapers, so I’m going to dig in. ( vomit )
According to real news sources such as Sky News and MSN, as well as thousands of Twitter/X accounts, Donald Trump fans have embraced their idol’s supposed incontinence and are walking around rallies wearing nappies and merchandise that says, “Real men wear nappies.” Diaper Don” and “diapers are more important than Democrats.” But do they really do it? For that matter, does Donald Trump even wear diapers? Well, it depends. (See what I did there?)
Origin story of von Sh*tzinPantz
The first widespread claim that Donald Trump wears diapers was made by stand-up comedian Noel Kasler. Back in 2018, Casler, who says he worked on Trump’s reality show The Apprentice, claimed Trump ” frequently got dirty ” on set. Was Kasler telling the truth? Hard to tell. This isn’t the kind of scoop that mainstream journalists chase, so we won’t get any help here, but it’s worth noting that, as far as I can tell, no one who worked on The Apprentice has come forward to claim this. “yes, it happened”, despite Kasler’s claim that it was common knowledge on set. On the other hand, Trump is well known for the non-disclosure agreements he has with his staff, and who would want to risk contradicting a powerful, fussy madman like Trump? On the other hand, Donald Trump looks like he’s asleep all the time. But ultimately, Diaper Don’s name is not confirmed.
It’s actually true: Rumors about Trump wearing diapers and pooping are widespread. It entered the official transcript of Trump’s criminal trial in New York this week in the form of a tweet from Michael Cohen that referred to Trump as “Von ShitzInPantz.” So the aroma is in the air, so to speak. But it’s doubtful Trump fans are actually responding to the rumors by wearing diapers and shirts that say “Diaper Don.” Yes, there are photos, and yes, everyone I know believes it, but I’m not sure – it’s too perfect.
Exhibit one: photographs.
We both know that the photographs themselves do not contain any evidence – they may be posed, Photoshopped or created by artificial intelligence – but their source gives us some clues. All the photos of people wearing Donald Trump’s diaper-centric clothing so far have been created in one place: Dispatches from Trumpland , a blog that appears to have launched in December and purports to be a pro-Trump website.
If Dispatches is truly a pro-Trump blog, it’s lazy. It has a total of five non-diaper related posts, mostly non-partisan articles covering the GOP primaries. I thought they were writing AI, so I ran this post through three AI writing detection services, and they all returned specific “This is AI” results. Posts about diapers are returned as “human” though.
Unlike boring primary articles, diaper posts are unclear in detail. The first doesn’t include a location for photos of the Trumpers in diapers, but does mention “the shopping cart that was picked up on the news in Michigan,” without a link. (If this story exists, I can’t find it.) The second post about diapers says the photos were taken at “Trump’s last event in rural Pennsylvania” but doesn’t mention where or when the event took place.
All of this taken together strongly suggests that this site is an astrotour, a political smear work that exists only to distribute photographs. Everything else on the site seems designed to provide a thin semblance of verisimilitude (unless you spend 10 minutes studying it).
Evidence number two: the psychology of Trump supporters and opponents
One more thing: If we know anything about Trump supporters, we know that they take pride in what they do (no matter how burdensome it is). So why don’t we have verified Trump supporters posting pictures in diapers? If anyone really believes that an ad that says “real men wear diapers” will bring liberal tears, why isn’t your shitty uncle wearing that T-shirt right now? Trump supporters missing out on the chance to own liberals undermines credibility at a breaking point.
It also doesn’t seem like they’re taking something they consider a weakness and pinning it on their buddy Donnie. They like Trump to be seen as strong and not as a decrepit old ass. Abolishing insults is a liberal thing.
On the other hand, Trumpers trying to be “Dark Brandon” but only succeeding in making themselves look even more ridiculous is exactly the kind of thing you’d send to a group of friends and post in threads with the caption “get a ton of what these idiots are doing it now!” It’s too good. Too perfect. Plays too clearly on the prejudices of one group.
I respect the fuss, but seeing the sausage being made makes me a little queasy. Sure, it’s effective propaganda, and there’s nothing “unfair” about democracy, so I see the political wisdom in shaming Trump supporters and providing a ton of “they write themselves” jokes for late-night comedians, but the idealist in me wants to say, “Aren’t we shouldn’t be better? Do we really need to make up the ridiculous things Trump supporters do?”
We may never know whether this is a mass phenomenon or astrotourism.
You can now buy all sorts of “real men wear diapers” T-shirts from online retailers like teepublic , but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that they were sold before the first post appeared in Trumpland’s Dispatches on April 11 about diapers. No doubt we’ll soon see this product in the wild, likely from both Trump fans who believe in it and Trump haters who mock it. And “Trump is the shit” will no doubt be the theme song of this terrible election year, repeated as often as “Hillary Clinton is about to die!” This was in 2016. Remember this?
Seriously, this whole thing is disgusting.
Wandering in the mud may be necessary to win the 2024 election, but the more I think about this particular slander, the uglier it seems to me. Not because of Trump (fuck him) or his supporters (fuck them too), but because real men wear diapers. Real women wear diapers. Not being able to control your bowels is not a sign of weakness, and it’s not particularly funny. This is an unjust humiliation that happens to both the great and the terrible.
I realize the more subtle point here is to make fun of Trump fans’ slavish and bizarre devotion to their idol, but at the risk of being a party animal, using adult diapers as a means of ridicule is actually unfair to people who are incontinent. Ageism is an -ism like any other, and if you imagine using the same tactics with some other marginalized group, pointing at Trump and saying, “Ha! Von Shitschishpants”, this will be much less funny.