It’s just possible that Absolut didn’t grasp the angry shitstorm that they would call in by running this advertisement:

Now, I think that a lot of commentators — very definitely including the blogger I just linked — make good coin off of spreading pearl-clutching hysteria over immigration and the terrible specter of the brown hordes taking our jobs and debasing our culture until you will get salsa instead of ketchup on your Quarter Pounder. 95% of the rhetoric about reconquista and Aztlan is either foolish or insincere pants-wetting. I’m roughly as worried that Mexico will re-annex the Southwest as I am worried that the South will actually rise again and replace Formula One with mandatory NASCAR.

But Absolut rather clearly stepped in it here. The message “it would be a better world if Mexico still owned most of the Western United States” might play for fist-pump or an agreeing giggle in some circles, but it ain’t going to play in Peoria. A huge chunk of their market is going to be offended. Their junior-college-diversity-workshop-twaddle explanation isn’t going to fly. Plus, the notion that the Western states would be better if they were run like Mexico is the sort of thing you would only say if you had (1) never been to Mexico, except possibly to one of the more expensive rooms at Club Med, and (2) never read about Mexico. People aren’t crossing the desert without water because they want to go to Disneyland.

I am familiar with the truism that no publicity is bad publicity, but I suspect Absolut will find this the exception that proves the rule. Plus, by stirring the silly reconquista-fearing pot, they will do a grave disservice to the very audience they hope to please by whipping up the sort of commentators out there who gleefully document every crime committed by an illegal alien and wring their hands over why razor wire is so expensive.

Last 5 posts by Ken

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