The most exciting moment of the convention’s opening night came when Trump walked into the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee wearing his trademark dark suit and large red tie, and a small white bandage over his right ear, where he was injured in Saturday’s shooting.
The next day, a small group of Trump’s most loyal supporters began wearing makeshift bandages over their right ears — out of sympathy and support for Trump, several delegates with bandages explained.
“It’s another sign of unity within the party,” said Joe Neglia, a Republican representative from Arizona who says he was the first to make an earmuff out of white paper and attach it to the side of his head. “When I saw him come in Monday night — that magic moment — I thought, ‘I’ve got to do something,’ and this is what I was able to do.”
On the Congressional Hall floor, the Trump-inspired ear bandage isn’t nearly as ubiquitous or iconic as, say, his signature red Make America Great Again hats.
But what started with Neglia and the Arizona delegation spread to other delegations, from Texas to Washington state.
Neglia prepared his bandages on the bus to Congress Tuesday morning, said Craig Berland, chairman of the Maricopa County GOP, but they didn’t have any gauze with them.
So that night, Berland said, “the girls” — other delegates traveling with them — went to get gauze and tape. He estimates that at least half of Arizona’s delegation of more than 40 members is now wearing bandages.
“It is a sign of solidarity,” he said in an interview on the conference floor.
Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist who attended the convention, said he was “impressed that American ingenuity responded so quickly to fill this market.”
“But for all the Trump-era stylistic flourishes, from hats to sneakers, this seems the most organic,” Donovan said. “It was a really surreal moment that people are still processing, and this is a relatable expression of solidarity in a meme-y political moment.”
The Washington Post saw about a dozen delegates wearing the homemade bandages on Tuesday and Wednesday, but it was unclear how many were in the massive arena in total. Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the distribution of bandages.
Texas Rep. Jackson Carpenter, like the rest of the delegation, wore matching Texas flag shirts and cowboy hats. He put the bandage on his ear when he heard another delegate handing them out.
“We need a symbol that makes it clear that political violence is not acceptable in America,” Carpenter said.
And Zachary Landsdowne, a Washington state representative, said he originally made his homemade earmuff from Band-Aids he brought from home in case he cut himself in Milwaukee. But his right ear didn’t get much attention until he swapped the beige Band-Aids for white paper.
Having established what he considered a winning formula, Landsdowne then passed judgment on the attire of his fellow delegates: “I saw one guy with a whole napkin up the side of his head, but it didn’t look like a bandage,” he said with a laugh.
The bandage is actually quite simple to make. “I took this white paper and rolled up this tape here and folded the top part so it would stay on my ear like this — voila,” Neglia said. “I’m breaking new ground in fashion.”
Arizona Rep. Liz Harris said she went to the only Walgreens open at 11 p.m., after Congress had closed for the day, and bought gauze and surgical tape, which she proudly displayed on the floor Wednesday night.
And when she heard some people online labeling their trend as cultish, she laughed.
“It’s out of solidarity,” she said, echoing Arizona Rep. Berland.
As Harris indicated she wanted others to use her newly acquired medical supplies, fellow Arizona Rep. Michael Schaffer walked in with his right ear unadorned.
“We have a patient,” she said excitedly, as she removed the tape and treated his exposed ear.
Maeve Reston contributed to this report from Milwaukee.