Monday, February 03, 2014

Talk Like an American

As Steve noted last week, an MSNBC staffer was fired, and Phil Griffin apologized, for a Tweet that had the temerity to suggest that conservatives might be kinda racist (specifically, that they would react negatively to a second Cheerios commercial featuring a bi-racial family).

Yesterday, during some sporting event, Coca Cola aired an adorable* commercial celebrating America's diversity: And predictably, the Not Racist At All conservatives lost their collective shit. Not just random idiots on Twitter, or the commenters at Fox Nation; Allen West, Breitbart.com, and Right Wing News have all posted horrified reactions. And Fox's own Todd Starnes had a mini-meltdown on Twitter: And, the gilding on the cherry on the icing on the cake, a sublime Gates-worthy moment of self-obliviousness: How dare Plouffe suggest that Republicans might react negatively to the commercial!

The thing is, they just can't help it. The lesson here: when you don't do policy any more--when all you've got holding your coalition together is a collection of reactionary impulses--there is no keeping those impulses in check, even when strategic considerations would call for suppressing them.

Update: Glenn Beck gets in on the action.

Other Update: And at the other end of the spectrum, here's a perfectly valid liberal critique of the ad.


*It's perfectly legitimate to hate this ad, or any ad that tries to co-opt general feel-good sentiments for purely mercenary purposes, for its manipulative nature. But that's another conversation altogether.
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9 comments:

  1. aimai2:29 PM

    Lets rename Coca Cola "Freedom Drink" and then boycott it?

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  2. Victor2:40 PM

    Our Reich-Wingers lose their shit so often nowaday's, at the littlest things, that they ought to wear Depends 24 X 7.

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  3. Never Ben Better3:12 PM

    Now, if only they'd go so berserk with paroxysms of outraged fury that their aging choleric hearts and brains would....

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  4. Unknown5:27 PM

    It's funny that Glenn Beck thinks that Coca-Cola's motivation is to divide people with this ad.

    What kind of business strategy is THAT, Glenn? Why would Coca-Cola want to divide people? How does that sell more product?

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  5. Luigi7:35 AM

    MSNBC is owned by Comcast. Those are two very conservative brothers. They view the network as a bauble they got when they hijacked the Peacock Network. They couldn't care less if MSNBC went to an all cartoon schedule as long as it made money. MSNBC is nowhere near the liberal equivalent of Faux News and never will be as long as its corporate overlords are conservative wretches. That's why they fire people for tweets. Because they're inherently evil and they can.

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  6. Glennis9:31 AM

    Looking forward to the Republican National Committee trying to find a convention building that can break its exclusive agreement with Coke.

    And in fact, if Starnes is suggesting it, what's it say about Republicans that they would take an act of such large economic proportions based on.....a single TV commercial?

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  7. Ten Bears11:15 AM

    In most civilized countries around the world their citizens speak two often three languages. Here most can barely speak one. Exceptional indeed.

    Exceptionally stupid.

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  8. RoadScholar3:14 PM

    I'll bet every one of the folks in that ad also speak English, and that they speak it better than the hate-spewers.

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  9. Grung_e_Gene5:04 AM

    So conservatives are Super Mad that Coca-Cola had a commerical in many languages? Why do right-wingers hate Business? Why don't they want Coke to sell more product? Why do conservatives hate success? Coca-Cola is quintessentially American. 7-Up may be the Uncola but conservatives are Unamerican!

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