Progressive Buttons Blog

All American retail businesses are suffering in this economic recession, but the political button business is a particularly hard one right now. 2004 saw sales of campaign buttons reach unprecedented levels, but since then, the American public has shown a profound disinterest in political buttons.

I’m not just guessing that’s the case. Here’s a chart that proves it:

This graph shows online interest in political button as measured through the databases of Google. As you can see, interest in political buttons was high throughout most of 2004, but crashed after the 2004 election and has never recovered - not even with the 2008 presidential campaign.

What’s to blame? It isn’t just the bad economy. A political button doesn’t cost very much, in the scheme of things, although the decision by CafePress to increase the price of their basic buttons to about five dollars hasn’t helped matters.

The problem is apathy. People got involved in the 2004 presidential election because they saw that George W. Bush was a profound threat to America… but then they lost, and lost interest. The lesson they took away from the 2004 presidential election is that it doesn’t matter what they do.

So, even people who approve of Barack Obama in 2008 are less involved in showing their support. Americans have become political observers, not political activists. They’re happy to just watch the presidential campaigns on TV. They feel no need to get involved, and no need to wear a political button.