[BeetleB]

>The MAGA platform is associated with explicitly barring some of them from the country.

That's essentially saying that people have to agree with the whole platform or none of it.

As an example, there are many liberals who voted for Obama and did not agree with all aspects of the platform (healthcare reform or military policies). Would wearing a "Yes, we can" shirt/hat be offensive, then?

That kind of argument seems very reductionist.

Finally, the very format of your question is problematic, for two reasons.

First, making claims that someone is trying to offend by wearing a slogan is what is referred to as "attribution of intention". Instead of having a dialog about it, you're concluding the person's intention. As someone who has often been on the receiving end of that (I'm sure we all have on divisive issues), that is very offensive.

Second, this type of reasoning is what I often call, "From ignorance comes uncertainty." You are indirectly admitting you cannot understand any other reason someone would act in a certain way, and then imply you know the "true" reason.

Usually such statements are phrased as "I cannot think of a good reason X would do it, therefore it must be because of Y".

I'll grant that you did not use this exact template, and if your question really was borne out of curiosity, I apologize for my own "attribution of intent". But I do hope I have given you something to think about on the topic in question.

[mfringel]

Your elected officials own the messaging on your political brand. You don't actually get a choice on this one.

If I have to get a read on someone before I directly interact with them, their wearing of a MAGA hat will give me a bunch of useful going-in assumptions, just like any other political insignia worn as clothing.

[BeetleB]

>If I have to get a read on someone before I directly interact with them, their wearing of a MAGA hat will give me a bunch of useful going-in assumptions, just like any other political insignia worn as clothing.

Where we disagree is this:

1. You don't have to get a read on someone before interacting with them. That path is the path to stereotyping.

2. We disagree on whether those going-in assumptions are useful.

[mfringel]

There are plenty of professions where someone has to "read a room/person/situation" before having a chance to interact with people. As an example, many types of consulting require someone to "take the pulse of a room" before directly interacting with any one person. To be sure, there's a price for being wrong, but there's also a reward for being right.

[creaghpatr]

That’s textbook bigotry, and you recognize it yourself as you gleefully assert “You don’t actually get a choice”

The burden is on you to “give him a choice”

[mfringel]

I disagree with you.

If someone is wearing a Boston Bruins jersey in public, I think it's reasonable to believe that they're a fan of the Boston Bruins hockey team. I _could_ ask them if that's the case, or if they're a New York Rangers fan that's wearing it ironically, but that would (probably) be wasted effort, because I have a good idea of the answer I'm going to get.

It seems reasonably straightforward to apply that to other team insignia, especially one that is so clearly affiliated with a specific political leader, and their political outlook.

[colanderman]

False equivalence. (There's a lot of that in the Trump age.) Obama never explicitly ran on a platform of implementing a policy which would immediately destroy the livelihood of upstanding individuals based on their identity or associations. (See: Muslim ban, immigration policy, transgender ban.)

[BeetleB]

>Obama never explicitly ran on a platform of implementing a policy which would immediately destroy the livelihood of upstanding individuals based on their identity or associations.

He did, however, run on a platform that was about escalating a conflict in another part of the world, and did implement it, and many people did end up being killed, which is a lot more than what Trump did.

[perfmode]

Whataboutism at its finest