Consider, for a moment, the following photograph:
I suppose that you see a glass of soda (pop? coke?), sitting on a wooden pedestal. A background of brick and sunkissed glass in the background, it’s a picture of summer evenings and sweet things quenching your thirst.
I, however, must disagree. Instead we are looking at the truest analogy we have for the Donald Trump candidacy.
Take, for instance:
The Old-Timey Patriotism – The glass itself is an ode to an older time. When war meant killing Nazis and coming home to a dame and a factory job and house from GI Bill. The glass is blazed with Red, White, and Blue, promising to spirit to your lips the best of America. It invokes the days when America was Great. With ticker-tape parades and jingoism. The shape of the glass is even a classic, harking to the good old days of Brokaw’s Greatest Generation. Its silhouette alone is the sum of our nostalgia for grainy John Wayne films and Ballpark Franks. The glass alone seems to be screaming “Let’s Make American Great Again!”
The Homage to a Craft – In America, we used to make things. Like machines. And beer. And diabetes. And here, to appease our yearning for an era of production, is blazed upon that glass’s curves is something we can all agree on: “Take pride in your beer.” And who wouldn’t take pride in their beer? Who wouldn’t like to see America great? It’s a statement so banal that to raise an eyebrow is akin to treason.
And yet, hidden in the glare of the setting sun, is the signature of a registered trademark. Yessirree, this here token of American exceptionalism is the intellectual property of one REDACTED Brewing Company. This simple statement is more than an affirmation of good faith. It’s the cynical commercialization of what we all hold dear – not so different from a TRUMP steak or the $25 Bling H2O available in Trump Hotels.
The Bait and Switch – Of course the glass that proclaims “Take pride in your beer®” holds no beer at all. The glass we see came filled, not with the bounty of fermented grain, but with a mass produced vacuum bag of sugarwater. Cynical branding aside, it’s the bait-and-switch. The glass promises the fruits of America’s heartland and delivers cheaply manufactured fluff. What’s more Trumpian than that?
I’ll tell you what’s more Trumpian. The double bait and switch. That there soda is a Diet. The promise to “Take pride in your beer®” can’t even deliver real corn syrup. How will it build a wall?
The Glass Half Full – And so we’re left looking at a half-full glass of unnaturally colored liquid, and we’re not really sure of what it’s made of. Sounding familiar? Well, you may have noticed that I said half-full. That’s pretty optimistic. Maybe it’s half empty?
Nope.
Take another look at the glass. The geometry of the thing, the bulbous top and narrow bottom mean that it’s not even nearly half full. And when you consider that most of it there is icy cold filler, not much substance, then the glass barely holds anything at all.
The more we look at the photo, the less it looks like a cool drink on a hot summer night. Even the condensation on the glass evokes the campaign team sweating as the new poll results roll in. It seems more like we’re looking at a cynically branded, disingenuous homage to the American Greatness of a time we never knew. It’s a bulbous, diaphoretic, discolored poison trying to emulate a flavor that is, for better or worse, a part of our shared heritage. Its substance is bloated by coldness, so that what seems to be a half-full lesser evil is hardly more than a few drops of sticky moisture.
A few drops of sticky moisture. Please try to remember that phrase when you’re alone in the booth, and think about how uncomfortable it makes you feel.
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