Old Style deserves better, and so do we
Plus: Meet the middle tier's master matchmaker!
Politicians use alcoholic beverages as props all the time, with varying degrees of success. In nearly 15 years on this beat, I don’t think I’ve ever seen somebody do it with less success than Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance. Look at this fucking guy:
About once a week I get an email from a reader griping about Fingers’ political coverage. I’m reluctant to dunk on them, unless they’re being assholes, in which case I’m not reluctant at all. To those complaining in good faith, I usually respond with something along the lines of:
It’s my editorial experience that the heavily regulated, multi-billion-dollar American beverage-alcohol industry is inherently political, and pretending otherwise would be a disservice to my readers.
Could I build a more successful business pretending otherwise? Oh, almost certainly. (Speaking of which, if you’re reading this for free, please buy a subscription, thank you.) There’s seemingly endless thirst for view-from-nowhere business analysis for CPGuys, and for soft-focus #content for brands. I have no interest in publishing either. I do have an interest in examining what a stone-cold freak JD Vance is around a case of beer, though.
What is he up to with that sixer of Old Style? What does he mean when he pats that mix-pack of Happy Dad hard seltzer and tells NELK Boys ringleader Kyle Forgeard that he’ll “use it on the airplane” with a nervous laugh? I’d almost expect this bizarrely wooden behavior from GOP ticket-topper Donald Trump, a known teetotaler whose brain is porridge. But Vance is 39 years old, and there’s an odd-on chance he’s tasted original-formula Four Loko. Why is it so hard for him to not be an oleaginous oaf when somebody hands him a beer?
I’m not covering Vance’s limp-dick beer-brand pandering because it’s funny, though it is, and you should laugh at him. These videos demonstrate yet again there’s no exempting drinks from politics, and never has been. Vance’s Old Style spot is pure faux-populism, a bid to coopt a proud Rust Belt symbol to make a hackneyed point about inflation and grocery prices. Old Style deserves better, man. The Happy Dad video is easier to parse: the NELK Boys built a hard seltzer brand for the Let’s Go Brandon set, and the Trump campaign desperately needs to reach the shitheaded jamokes that venerate them. This all exists in the same ecosystem as the Proud Boys’ White Claw obsession, the transphobic tantrum over Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch InBev’s subsequent repositioning of the brand to the right, and Ted Cruz inviting Joe Biden to kiss his ass over as-yet-unpublished USDA drinking guidance.
I could go on, but I won’t. The point is you can’t understand drinking in America unless you understand the political landscape that shapes it. It was ever thus.
It’s Election Day 2024. Perhaps you’ve heard. I think the case for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris is obvious, in the sense that Trump is obviously a fascist. It’s Fingers’ considered editorial opinion that you should vote against him, and for her. If the fact that Vance has less charisma than a Blanton’s-humping tater helps you look past your objections to her candidacy, hey, great. Regardless of how you vote, and how this election goes down, I’ll continue covering the business, culture, and, yes, the politics of drinking in America as I have for the past four years. Including any drinks-abetted on-camera grotesques of the historically juiceless JD Vance, if I have to. I hope I don’t.
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