Taylor Lorenz’s Power User
Taylor Lorenz’s Power User

ICE Wants to Shut Down His Clothing Brand: What Happens When the Govt Hates Your Merch

March 13, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In February 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection opened a shipment of t-shirts at O'Hare airport and decided to hold it for six weeks. The offending design? A swarm of bees attacking a police officer. The brand was Cola Corporation, run by a Chicago-based designer named Cola, and the seizure was just one episode in a longer pattern of censorship that has defined his business since he started it in 2019.

Cola launched Cola Corporation as a response to what he calls "a turn towards a certain kind of flamboyant stupidity in American politics." He had worked in the apparel industry for 14 years but had never designed or produced anything himself. His first collection in 2019 included three pieces: a t-shirt showing Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in 1983, a white tee reading "delete altright control" as an homage to 1980s designer Katharine Hamnett, and a design called "Flyover" that juxtaposed jets flying over an NFL game with an image of a man and his daughter screaming after their home was bombed. His motto was "kill American myths." The first year was lonely — he sold one item to someone he didn't know personally. Everything else went to friends and family.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:00) **Episode Introduction & Guest Background** - Taylor Lorenz introduces Cola, a Chicago-based clothing designer whose brand sharply criticizes police, power, capitalism, and ICE.
  • 2 (02:25) **Origin of Cola Corporation** - Cola explains the brand's founding in 2019 as a moral, not political, response to the political climate.
  • 3 (09:18) **Early Business Struggles and Twitter Breakthrough** - The first year of Cola was very lonely, selling only to friends and family.
  • 4 (11:29) **Immediate Backlash and Censorship Begins** - Cola faced backlash from the start, from both MAGA and leftists.
  • 5 (14:49) **Etsy Censorship and the Luigi Mangion Shirt** - Etsy removed a ball cap with a green "L" for "glorifying violence," while selling Mussolini hats and Dahmer merchandise.
  • 6 (18:24) **LAPD Censorship Attempt and the Streisand Effect** - The LAPD sent a DMCA takedown for an "F the LAPD" shirt, claiming ownership of the letters "LAPD."
  • 7 (21:08) **Everyday Censorship: Advertising Bans and Platform Inconsistency** - Cola is banned from advertising on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and Etsy.

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Show Notes

BUY COLA CORP APPAREL: https://www.thecolacorporation.com  (None of this is sponsored, I just really want people to support him!!!!) 

Support my independent journalism:

🙏 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/taylorlorenz     

🗞️ Buy a paid subscription to my Substack: https://www.usermag.co    

What happens when the government doesn't like your t-shirts? 

Joe, founder of Cola Corporation, has dealt with DMCA takedowns, letters from the LAPD, shipments seized by US Customs and Border Protection, and bans from advertising on virtually every major social platform including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and Etsy.

In this episode of Free Speech Friday, I sit down with him to talk about what it's really like to run an independent political clothing brand that challenges power. We talk about fashion and clothing as tools of resistance and the high price of using fashion as a tool for political criticism. 

Clothing has long been a way to communicate political beliefs, from protest shirts to campaign merch. But in the era of social media platforms, algorithms, and online marketplaces, the boundaries of acceptable expression are constantly being tested.

The designs mentioned in this episode:⁠ https://www.thecolacorporation.com/collections/taylor⁠

THE FREE SPEECH 1A SWEATER:⁠ https://www.thecolacorporation.com/products/1a-sparks⁠  

Topics discussed in this interview include:

• The rise of political merchandise online

• Social media censorship and advertising bans

• Etsy and TikTok removing controversial designs

• Police legal threats over a T-shirt slogan

• Government seizure of political clothing

• The Streisand effect and viral controversy

• Free speech and political expression through fashion

Follow me:

https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz        

https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0       

https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz   

https://bsky.app/profile/taylorlorenz.bsky.social    

https://twitter.com/taylorlorenz  


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