Donald Trump may be the only one who was actually shot in the ear, but at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, he is far from the only person sporting a bandage on the side of his face.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]The unusual accessory is sweeping the convention hall, where delegates and supporters, in a tribute to the former President and party nominee, are showcasing their own versions of his wound dressing, ranging from cotton pads to tape to folded pieces of paper.
Joe Neglia, a delegate from Tempe, Ariz., told Fox News on Tuesday that he had the idea of making his own ear bandage after being moved by Trump arriving at the RNC on Monday in his first public appearance since an attempted assassination at a Pennsylvania rally over the weekend.
“I thought, ‘what can I do to honor the truth? What can I possibly do?’” Neglia said. “And then I saw the bandage and I thought, I can do that. So, I put it on simply to honor Trump and to express sympathy with him and unity with him.”
Neglia also told CBS News on Tuesday that the fake bandages were fast becoming “the newest fashion trend” at the RNC. “Everybody in the world’s going to be wearing these pretty soon,” he said. “I’m setting new fashion ground here.”
Stacey Goodman, another delegate from Arizona who joined in the patch-clad fad, told KSBW Action News on Wednesday that she was inspired to mimic Trump’s look after seeing another delegate with an ear bandage. And she said she saw more and more others following suit, all “in solidarity with President Trump.”
Ray Michaels, another Arizona delegate, told the Associated Press on Wednesday: “We realized that this was a tragedy that should never have happened, and we want [Trump] to know that we are going through this with him.”
“We need a symbol about political violence not being acceptable in America,” Texas delegate Jackson Carpenter told the Washington Post.
“For all the stylistic flourishes of the Trump era, from hats to sneakers, this one seems the most organic,” Republican strategist Liam Donovan told the Post. “It was truly a surreal moment that people are still processing, and this is a recognizable show of solidarity in a meme-ified political moment.”
While Trump supporter Corey Comperatore and gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks were killed at the scene of the shooting on Saturday and two other rallygoers were injured, Trump himself escaped largely unscathed, save for a small part of his ear.
According to former White House physician Rep. Ronny Jackson, who inspected and dressed Trump’s graze, the bullet “just took the top of his ear off a little bit.” Eric Trump, the former President’s son, described his father as being “millimeters away from having his life expunged” and said he was dealing with “the greatest earache he’s ever had.”
While Trump was seen wearing a smaller bandage hours after the shooting, by the time he made his appearance at the RNC on Monday, his right ear was covered by a thick white pad which has sparked viral memes from all sides of the political spectrum.
Jackson told the New York Times that “the dressing bulked up a bit because you need a bit of absorbent. You don’t want to be walking around with bloody gauze on his ear.”
The bandage has reinforced Trump’s image of infallibility among supporters—many of whom already see him as something of a messiah. Trump allies have repeatedly attributed his survival to “divine intervention,” and Trump himself said after the shooting that “it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.”
It’s also not the only trend to emerge from the former President’s close call with death. Raised fists and the chant “fight fight fight”—both gestures Trump made moments after the attack, memorialized by an iconic photograph that’s already been plastered on numerous Republican merchandise—have become popular symbols among Trump’s supporters at the convention and will likely remain ubiquitous through the November election and beyond.
