Trump is Beef

Before his Twitter account was deleted for the incitement of violence, President Trump posted a narcissistic video culminating in his hugging an American flag, to the musical accompaniment of composer Aaron Copland’sHoedown,” and which concludes with a caption stating Trump is “what’s for America.”

Video taken from President Trump’s Twitter feed (which has now been deleted) in late December, 2020. The video’s final caption, “He’s what’s for America” — alongside the Aaron Copland musical selection — invokes a series of 1990’s beef industry advertisements.

The tagline and the music invoke a series of well-known American agricultural PR advertisements from the early 1990’s, and their slogan: “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner.”

In the early 1990’s, the National Livestock and Meat Board launched a US advertising campaign “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner” featuring the Aaron Copland score “Hoedown.”

As President, Trump was known to prefer his steaks well-done with a side of ketchup. Presumably it was on some other basis Trump was able to persuade those with less taste than his own to purchase his over-priced televised home shopping steaks:

Trump sold branded steaks on TV for 3 months in 2007.

The M.O. of the radical right is to appropriate the norms of civil society in order to dismantle it. Given that fascism requires a mass society in order to take root, perhaps it should not be surprising that the radical right should also appropriate the messaging style of the commercial mass media.

Without further adieu, here’s the beef:

For those too young to remember, this ain’t your grandma’s beef, it’s mom and dad’s mind control Trump appeals to.

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