Walmart predicts USA’s best days are past

Apparently I’m not the first to comment on this, but on a recent trip back to the US I saw t-shirts in Walmart sporting the slogan “Faded Glory.” I’m assuming they’re part of the Walmart store brand of the same name, but to be clear, these shirts actually had “Faded Glory” written on the front along with a ‘distressed’ American flag image. There were matching flip flops.

We thought it might be funny to buy some overtly Go USA gear as gag-gifts for friends in China, but didn’t end up buying (and I can’t find a picture of the shirts online). Only later did we get to thinking about the meaning of that slogan, especially when paired with a beat-up looking US flag…did no one at Walmart realize what the shirt conveys when taken literally? Kind of a depressing message to send out to the masses.

Maybe I wouldn’t have thought as much of it if I wasn’t working outside the US, seeing the country a little more from an outsider’s perspective. My first week in Shanghai, I had a cab driver ask where I was from, and upon learning that I was American he excitedly made a hand motion that resembled something going up and up, then exploding. No idea what he meant (and couldn’t communicate well enough to understand), but I like to pretend he was talking about the Dow, or our economy in general.

Probably not, but I couldn’t help think of that cab driver when I saw the Faded Glory shirts.

[Thanks to Ash for pointing this out.]