In a generally weak year for Super Bowl commercials, Jeep’s stood out for being particularly obnoxious and tone-deaf. Called “The Middle,” left-wing political activist and world-famous singer Bruce Springsteen narrated and starred in the ad about how the country has been divided, but now it has a bright future as the “ReUnited States of America.”
Here's one interesting take on the three big mistakes Jeep made.
As one Twitter user put it, “That’s all I could think of, the whole spot. Being preached to by someone who doesn’t respect my views who relishes in suppressing them, having the nerve to pretend to be ‘my community’ and declare unity. They have no idea how transparently cynical the whole thing came across.”
What made the United States divided until recently, the viewer might ask. Why, according to Jeep, is the country reunited now?
For 74 million Trump-voting Americans who lived through four years of epithets and refusal by elites such as Springsteen to treat the president of the United States as legitimate, it’s not hard to see why the ad is going over like a lead balloon. One reason the middle has been a hard place to get to is because of wealthy and powerful people like Springsteen spewing hatred toward Republican presidents and their voters dating back to the 1980s.
How could a major corporation not see how propagandistic it comes off to suggest that when Republicans win a national election, that’s divisive, but when Democrats win one, that’s unifying? The corporate-approved approach is to paper over disagreement while Democrats hold power while amplifying a full-on #Resistance when Republicans are in power.
Jeep sales will not heal the fabric of the country. Jeep ads can’t even help toward that goal so long as they are using dishonest and manipulative partisan framing in service of car sales.
Has this writer nailed it or missed the mark?
Read Article
