Budweiser Renames Its Beer "America" For Summer

With the election and the Olympics coming up, this still makes very little sense.

Eh.

You know who's got a big problem with this? The leftwing hardcore identity politics/racism webzine New Republic.

Multiple people were actually involved in choosing, assembling, and printing the following words:

This stupid Budweiser campaign is Donald Trump's fault. If we think of the U.S. presidential election season not only as a grand exercise in democracy, but as a vast proving ground for how to sell a message to millions of Americans, then Trump’s campaign is surely being studied by every marketing agency in the country. The secret to his success, and the main rhetorical innovation he has brought to presidential politics, is to dispel subtlety altogether and make subtext text. Undocumented immigrants aren't just shadowy threats to the American citizenry; they’re rapists and drug dealers. Ted Cruz isn't merely an unctuous politician who will say whatever it takes to win; he’s Lyin’ Ted. Discussions of the size of Trump's hands aren’t really about the size of his hands; they're about the size of his penis. Time was that voters had to suss this intended meaning out for themselves, but no longer.

Yes, the tediously didactic and obvious New Republic is now apparently lamenting the loss of subtlety in American culture.

Update: The New Republic pretends, wanly, that they are simply objecting to the obviousness of this move -- not to the actual "America" theming.

But that's bullshit. Corporations have been engaging in political theming for some time -- how many times can we see a corporation "Go Green" for a week, or put up a rainbow colored icon, etc.? Pink ribbons, purple ribbons -- corporations now routinely proclaim their (often phony) allegiance to one tribe's gods.

I don't remember anyone on the left objecting to the sledgehammer-blunt messaging from the Human Corporation called Beyonce:

Such corporate declarations of tribal fidelity are celebrated by TNR types -- no matter how ham-handed and shotgun-obvious they are. (In fact, the more ham-handed and obvious, the better!)

What TNR and leftists don't like is America, period. They object to this particular stupid political-theming stunt.

posted by Ace at 02:16 PM

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