The GOP Says I'm Happy About the New Cracker Barrel Logo and I Don't Know Why
Does anyone get this?
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On Monday, Cracker Barrel, the family-style buffet restaurant with 658 locations throughout the United States, announced a new logo as part of its brand redesign.
The old logo, of course, is the one on the left. The new logo is on the right.
The new logo is unnecessary and subpar. I like the old logo. The new logo feels soulless and corporate. The old logo was warm and familiar.
The new logo truly does suck. I don’t like it.
I also don’t really care? I don’t know why this logo change should matter to me, one way or the other. I don’t anticipate it affecting my future dining decisions.
If I were asked, I would choose the old logo, but again: I don’t really care.
For reasons that remain unclear, the Republican Party and conservative media have decided to make the Cracker Barrel logo change their new anti-woke campaign.
They believe someone like me—a progressive trans woman—is cheering on the new logo change, which I find very confusing. I’m genuinely confused.
Tragically, I am something of an expert on anti-woke propaganda—which is an incredibly sad and pathetic area of expertise—and my hand to god, I honestly don’t know why rightwing influencers think I should be happy about the logo change.
I have tried this week to understand their reasoning. I have read numerous articles in rightwing publications. I have scanned numerous social media posts from rightwing personalities and elected officials. I have attempted to turn off my brain and recognize the claimed woke-ness.
I can’t find it.
Is it that the old-timer gentleman in the old logo—presumably a “cracker”—has been removed, although the name of the restaurant chain remains the same?
Does that mean “cracker” is no longer seen as an anti-white slur by the Republican Party and conservative movement? Do they want white people to be called “crackers” and a failure to do so is woke?
I don’t know! I truly don’t. No answers on these questions have been found or offered.
I have seen them call it ‘soulless’ and ‘sterile’ and ‘corporate,’ and I agree. The new logo is all of those things. You will hear no disagreement from me on that.
But woke? I don’t get it.
Amidst all the outrage, I came across this tweet from Republican Congressman Byron Donalds (FL-19), which is, hands down, one of the funniest things I’ve ever read online:
I gotta say: as a Christian myself, aside from being annoyed over the weird use of Christ as a cudgel against political enemies, I can’t help but find this hilarious?
“I gave my life to Christ in a Cracker Barrel parking lot” may be one of the funniest sentiments made by any politician in this era.
It’s almost as though these folks are so desperate for any distraction from their governing failures and ongoing cover-up of the Epstein sex trafficking operation that probably implicates Trump, they’re willing to make anything and everything a scandal of wokeness.
Gee, ya think?
This is why I can’t help but roll my eyes at Democratic consultants who insist that we not engage on any “culture war” nonsense and be solely focused on economic issues.
It’s not because I think our nation should be having debates over things like the Cracker Barrel logo. I don’t. That’s absurd.
It’s because we’re missing a key opportunity here to paint the Republican Party as completely unserious and stridently uncaring about the issues facing working class families.
We shouldn’t be debating them. We should be laughing at them.
We should be calling them out on their attempted distractions. We should be openly laughing at their obstruction and mocking their ridiculous histrionics and then pivoting right back to working class families.
“While weird and fragile Republicans want you to care about restaurant logos, the Democratic Party wants to make sure groceries are affordable and your family has enough to eat.”
It’s really that simple, and yet, per usual, I’m not seeing Democratic electeds do much messaging on that end.
Republicans will keep lobbing out these childish distractions through the midterms and oblivious, thirsty journalists looking for easy clickbait will continue writing dispassionately on them and accommodating and enabling that discourse.
Instead of entirely avoiding these distractions, we should be calling them out as ridiculous and embarrassing and indicative of a political party that cares far more about enraging Americans than ensuring American families have what they need.
I don’t know why this isn’t obvious, but then again, I’m just a cracker standing in front of a government asking it to care about her.
"I gave my life to Christ
in the Cracker Barrel parking lot"
should be the chorus in a country song, of the 'young man's address from the gallows' genre. You know, he sings about getting saved and it not taking and he ends up on death row or dying in a bar fight or something.
You are absolutely right, except that Cracker Barrel is not a buffet restaurant. They will actually bring your old timey comfort food to you (chicken and dumplings are my favorite). They also have a great gift shop -- ignore the tradwife stuff in favor of every childhood candy you can ever name, and you can spend a lot of money there. They also have Stewart's Orange Cream Soda, which is now impossible to get.
If you can't tell, I have a weird affinity for Cracker Barrel, which my partner occasionally lets me indulge. Here's why: I was affiliated with a non-profit which sometimes received leftover money from class action lawsuits, from when you don't send back the postcard or fill out the online form, and so don't make a claim for which you're eligible (a practice called cy pres.) Cracker Barrel was discriminating against Black and LGBTQ people, and a board member of my organization sued them. It settled favorably, and Cracker Barrel had to stop discriminating. (Ironically, they agreed to implement measures which in today's environment, would be considered prohibited DEI, instead of enhancing legal compliance (which is really what it is.)) Then the leftover money came to our organization, at a much needed time.
So even though they discriminated initially, and I boycotted them for a while while the suit was pending, it then resolved in a favorable way, with them taking steps that other organizations (who hadn't been sued) were not taking. Yeah, I am not impressed with the logo, but may have to eat there on our next road trip, just to piss off people like Byron Donalds.