"New realities"

Just over a year into the second Trump administration, booze execs have yet to find the courage to speak plainly and not-ghoulishly about its racist and deadly reign of terror on communities of color. One gets the sneaking suspicion they’re not even looking very hard. But they are coming up with breathtaking new euphemisms for the “papers please” fascism gripping this land. Earlier this week, for example, Boston Beer Company co-founder and new-ishly reappointed chief executive Jim Koch fielded a question from an analyst on the firm's annual earnings call about potential factors behind the small year-over-year uptick in beer sales a month into 2026. Among the factors, he hypothesized may be that:

There’s no evidence I’m aware of that immigrant families sending their full-citizen underage children on grocery runs had a material effect on beer sales last year. Even if there was, you'd still have to explain why sales have slightly improved this year, given masked MAGA shock troops have only become a more constant fixture in American cities and small towns alike. Koch did no such thing. In the very same call, he also attributed Twisted Tea's small sales decline in 2025 and forecasted headwinds in 2026 to “pressure on the Hispanic consumer.” Call it Schrödinger’s immigrant: simultaneously responsible for sales losses and sales gains under this regime. New realities, indeed.

👀 Calling all corporatespeak

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