This July 4, our nation will celebrate 250 years of independence. For some individuals and entities, this is bad news, as a guy they don’t like occupies the White House.
This state of affairs shouldn’t be unusual. After all, when America celebrated its bicentennial, we were two years removed from Richard Nixon’s nomination, with the ceremonies presided over by the man who pardoned him, Gerald Ford. Vietnam had just come to its very protracted end. I would assume there were plenty of angry libs back then, too.
What a difference that 50 years makes, apparently.
In 1976, America’s bicentennial was made possible by our shared patriotism — Republican, Democrat, independent, whoever. As long as you weren’t in Weather Underground, you were probably feeling good about America, even if cracks in our social edifice were evident.
Advertising back then reflected that, too. Consider Coca-Cola’s advertisement for the bicentennial, something that would never be made today.
You can almost feel the patriotism coursing through your veins:
Do you think Americans loved the country more 50 years ago or less?
Okay, so I don’t think Paul Revere started out his ride by drinking a Coke — it wasn’t invented yet, and the ride started at night — but that kind of anachronism connecting the American revolution to 200 years of Americana as a throughline for the ad is enough to bring a tear to your eye.
Were conditions in America perfect at the time? Naturally, no. But it’s not as if Coke was manufacturing fake patriotism.
Remember, advertising exists for one purpose: to sell something to you based on the values, predispositions, or pure consumer urges you currently hold by convincing you that the product will fulfill those and then some.
Coke’s message in 1976? Marching bands, the founding fathers, flags everywhere, small-town America exemplified.
Perhaps Coke’s execs didn’t dig in this sort of thing — they’re the ones who greenlit that hippie-tastic “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” ad a few years earlier, obviously — but they believed you did, and they were going to sell you delicious caffeinated goodness under the banner of the red, white, and blue.
This would never air today. I know this because I’ve seen some of their advertising for America’s quarter-millennium celebration, and they apparently think this country is a massive yoga mat with some woke, hip modern choir music and some screensaver backgrounds:
Some of it isn’t terrible — but if that’s the best you can say about something, damning with faint praise is an act of Brobdingnagian understatement. (Or Lilliputian statement, should you so choose.)
What changed? What they think will sell you something. And they’re probably right. If you view America as a country in need of a lot more toxic empathy, a lot less flag, and a bumpin’-but-not-too-bumpin’ soundtrack.
These people believe America is an idea, but not one in constitutional self-government: That idea is an Upper East Side hot pilates studio’s Instagram feed, which is currently drenched in rainbow flags for the month of June before briefly switching over to the Stars and Stripes between July 1-4.
Perhaps this was all inevitable. Divide through “unity” and you have a recipe for this kind of pap passing as patriotism. We can either accept this, or fight for an America that isn’t divided and self-destructive by default, because we don’t need it to be.
Don’t believe me. Believe Coke.
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