The Bottom Of The Cracker Barrel

The Right Wing Outrage Machine Gets More Stupid. Why Are They Like This?

The Cracker Barrel logo change triggered millions of right-wing snowflakes.

This may be a surprise to young people; there was a time - pretty recently too - where a corporate rebranding or marketing strategy would go unnoticed except maybe for a short piece on CNBC or an interview with the CEO in a trade magazine. One’s first experience with the rebrand would be the first time we utilize a product after the rollout. It was months before I realized that Pepsi stopped putting the company name in the middle of the iconic circular blue, white, and red logo. When American Airlines replaced the iconic AA tailfin livery with the current American flag motif, it felt like a drip campaign that only became obvious when I saw the fins lined up at Terminal 8 at JFK Airport, a year after the change was made.

There wouldn’t be multiple news cycles about it like there have been this month when Cracker Barrel, the nationwide restaurant and store chain popular in conservative parts of the country, decided to unveil its new logo and rebrand.

The company, which has been struggling with declining revenue and a customer base that hasn’t fully returned since the COVID-19 Pandemic, replaced its previous logo, featuring a man sitting on a chair next to a barrel, with “Cracker Barrel” adjacent to it in a yellow bubble. The new logo is just the name in a yellow bubble. A company going with a more simplistic logo isn’t surprising - a lot of companies do that. However, this one seems to have triggered another culture war flashpoint.

The rebranding has sparked outrage on the MAGA Right, with offiicals like Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who is running for governor, blaming former President Joe Biden for the new logo and then doing whatever the hell this is, and U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, the frontrunner to be the Sunshine State’s next governor, bizarrely explaining that Cracker Barrel’s old logo is so important to him because “I gave my life to Christ in a Cracker Barrel parking lot.”

I thought it was a joke the first time I read it, but no, it was real. Your next governor, Florida!

Even Donald Trump added his two cents with a screed on social media featuring all caps.

Those of us who operate in the normal world, where our priorities are paying bills, keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe, and taking care of our health, were tasked to try to make sense of why our fellow Americans are once again having psychotic breakdowns over something trivial. Since the Cracker Barrel controversy erupted, those of us who find it confusing and ridiculous have been told to show humility and, instead of smugly dismissing the outrage, listen and understand it.

So that’s what I did. How did it go?