Eight years in and I'm still pissed about those fucking hats. I have this nice red cap that a friend gave me almost 15 years ago. It was custom-made, and has a starburst image that a third friend created... and the cap base is the exact same shade of red as those fucking Trump hats, so I've not been able to wear it in public for 8 years.
When I was toddler back in the early 80s, I couldn't say grandma because enunciation hard. So I said it the best I could. Phonetically, it was maw-gah but when I got a bit older and could spell, it was Maga. To this day I still call her that and so do my kids.
Nah it's a real thing. The baseball team here has red hats and you used to see them everywhere. You see a lot of team hats in not red now, it's not about "offending some mouth breather" it's about a person a block away seeing me in my red hat and assuming I'm the mouth breather.
They ruined actual red hats faster than RedHat ruined a linux distro.
You're free to feel however you want. I live in a reasonably sized city with a thriving arts and music scene, I'd like be able to go out for meals and drinks and go to various events and have conversations and interactions with people without their first impression of me being "ohfuck ohfuck ohfuck" as they struggle to read my hat as I walk by.
That they'd steer clear of a MAGAt doesn't paint them as a mouth breather in this day and age; it makes them seem wary and like someone I'd agree with.
Got it. So the opinion of complete strangers means a lot to you. Especially people that jump to huge assumptions based on the color of your hat. What ever makes you happy I guess.
Like it or not, things sometimes become symbols for other things, and especially given the political climate, it makes sense for people to get their guard up if they see something that looks like one of those symbols that represents, say, an utterly toxic ideology.
Not wanting to make others navigate that stuff unnecessarily is a sign of thoughtfulness and pro-social tendencies, not weakness.
The opinion of strangers should have some impact on you. Too much and too little both lead to bad places. A little consideration for the opinions of strangers encourages pro social behavior. And yes choosing to avoid accidentally signaling something is part of pro social behavior.
Personally I like strangers to be less on guard with me, it makes my day a little bit more pleasant. I’m not going to judge people for choosing otherwise with something like a hat that happens to be red, but it’s not a choice I’d personally make