I gotta say, it’s getting bitter out there in the healthy drink world.
That would account for this story of butt-hurt Republican marketing, via the Harpers Weekly Review:
“I’m very open about it, very public about it, that I’m going to charge them a little bit more, and I have liberals come in and pay the extra dollar surcharge,” [George] Burnett said, referring to his unique pricing structure.
Yep, Burnett, the diehard supporter of domestic energy and longtime health food fan, charges those who identify themselves as liberals one dollar more for their drinks. The money, along with any tips received, is donated to conservative causes like The Heritage Foundation. [h/t @DylanByers’ twitter feed]
As Burnett’s shop is in the heart of Utah oil and gas country, it’s not particularly surprising that this isn’t much more than a gum-flapping exercise. As of the date of this local story (Jan. 14) the smoothie merchant said that “all three liberals have been happy to pay” his liberal tax.
Still, this has to rank as one of the most pathetic forms of political expression I’ve come across in the more than three decades since I first achieved the franchise. I suppose it may count as smart marketing in Burnett’s catchment area; the crowd that thinks buying cardboard chicken sandwiches in opposition to same-sex marriage is a peach of an idea would no doubt be willing to gulp down some yogurt drinks in solidarity with this attempt to stick it to the Liberal Man.
But as long as our opponents want to emphasize that they see us not merely as political adversaries but as illegitimate others, I’m actually a happy clam. These are not the actions of a majority coalition.
And if by some sweet chance this guy starts to struggle to make his rent? No tears, dude: welcome to the free market.
Image: Pieter de Hooch, Woman Drinking with Soldiers, 1658.
Chris
How the yotz do you know who they are? You ask to see voter ID cards before giving them a drink?
… or do you simply assume anyone without a Republican ID is a liberal and charge them accordingly? That would be profitable for a few weeks at least, until everyone wised up.
BGinCHI
Great business sense. A health food and smoothie joint against liberals?
What’s next, an upscale gym and salon against gay marriage?
Ben Cisco
What a douchebag.
Wonder how he’d feel if his business dropped b/c liberals didn’t feel like getting clipped?
Oops…
Citizen Alan
This is why, even if I agreed with their stupid policies, I would not be a Republican. Because I’m not an asshole and I don’t like people who are. And you can’t be a Republican if you’re not a complete asshole. It’s simply not possible. There are, I admit, plenty of Democratic assholes, and there are occasionally non-assholes who vote Republican in certain situations. But I do not believe there is a single person in America who is a proud member of the GOP and who is not also a complete raging asshole.
trollhattan
Conservative Smoothie Empire has a certain ring. IIUC a lot of the badly underregulated “dietary supplement” industry is Utah-based, doing the Angel Moroni’s work, I suppose. Meanwhile, Whole Foods Randian whoremonger John Mackey is coming to the People’s Republic of Davis next month, where I hope he harvests a 21-pepper spray welcome.
trollhattan
Hmm, an afternoon FYWP puzzle. Let’s try this:
Conservative Smoothie Empire has a certain ring. IIUC a lot of the badly underregulated “dye-itary supplement” industry is Utah-based, doing the Angel Moroni’s work, I suppose. Meanwhile, Whole Foods Randian whoremonger John Mackey is coming to the People’s Republic of Davis next month, where I hope he harvests a 21-pepper spray welcome.
Origuy
I notice, without further comment, that Vernal, Utah is the western gateway to Dinosaur National Monument.
chopper
so walk in, buy it and say ‘okay, as a liberal i’ll pay an extra dollar. as a conservative, you’ll clean it up’ and dump it all over the floor.
r€nato
say, what ever happened to that douchebag who bragged he wasn’t going to hire anybody while Obama was president?
oh, here we go. His name is Bill Looman, apparently he made his pledge in late 2011… hired a guy in March 2012… and thinks that lying is a felony.
Cluttered Mind
@r€nato: He disappeared without a trace, leaving nothing but a flaming oil field and a sign saying that he was leaving the place in the condition he found it.
Or at least, I’m sure that’s what he’d like you to believe. Most likely he expressed his poutrage in public and then went back to earning money hand over fist like most big business types have been doing in the Obama economy.
MattF
Are the smoothies at least moistened with Glenn Beck’s tears? That would be special.
burnspbesq
I’d pay an extra dollar for the opportunity to rip this idiot a new one in front of his employees.
Amir Khalid
@MattF:
You’d want to drink something containing Glenn Beck’s bodily fluids? Ew …
r€nato
In addition to being an internet lawyer, Bill Looman is a militia guy and also a really bad speller. “Web sight”.
Mandalay
Regarding the us-and-them division, I was just reading the pompous fraudster William Bennett. He is pontificating on how to win over young voters…
Bennett says nothing about considering why young people are not keen on capitalism. No suggestion that Republicans should look at Wall Street, or the markets, or the inequities in our society, or the problems that poverty brings, or reconsider Republican policies. No suggestion that there is any problem with the way things are now, except that we must change “our education system and the movies, music and entertainment”.
Then young people will become Republicans. Easy!
Some Guy
Forgive me, but isn’t charging people different prices for personal characteristics normally a form of bigotry? If he charged women or people of non-white racial appearance a dollar more it would be illegal, yes? Of course, we have no law prohibiting this, but it is a form of non-biological racism nonetheless.
jl
The horror of the long twilight struggle… into hopeless defeat… by merciless ruthless liberals… oh the humanity!
I think there are around 230 GOPers in the House. Let’s round that up to 300, for literary purposes, and make the movie version!
Boehner: Obama Wants To ‘Annihilate’ The GOP
Igor Bobic TPMLivewire
‘ the next 20 months, are going to be a very difficult period for us,” Boehner added. “Where’s the ground that we fight on? Where’s the ground that we retreat on? Where are the smart fights? Where are the dumb fights that we have to stay away from?”
“All I know is I’m up for the fight,” he affirmed. ‘
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/boehner-obama-wants-to-annihilate-gop
West of the Rockies
I don’t know, Tom; seeing those who disagree with you as “illegitimate” (I’m inferring that you mean something less than human here), I am NOT “happy as a clam”. Anyone read The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right? Author David Neiwert makes it pretty clear that such thinking is very dangerous. Witness what Michael Savage once notoriously said to an openly gay caller: “Oh, you’re one of the sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig. How’s that? Why don’t you see if you can sue me, you pig. You got nothing better than to put me down, you piece of garbage. You have got nothing to do tody, go eat a sausage and choke on it.” (12/31/2005 Savage Nation) (Quoted in The Eliminationists.
That’s some vile and dangerous talk. Such talk inspires people like Loughner.
SatanicPanic
I call bullshit on his claim that some liberals just pay the extra $. No way that has happened even once.
SiubhanDuinne
I love that line “squid clouds of butt hurt.” Was that Anne Laurie’s own original contribution? Or Krista/RedKitten’s? Or someone else’s? The BJ Lexicon doesn’t give proper credit.
patroclus
I’d like to thank Aqua Buddha that Rand Paul will never be President.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: I love that too. I salute whomever came up with it — it has entered my real-life lexicon.
Tone in DC
Forget squid ink clouds. These guys have BP Deep Water Horizon spill levels of butthurt.
MattR
@SatanicPanic: The story for one of them is that a conservative husband paid a dollar extra for his liberal wife’s drink. It is just a dollar so I guess the husband thought it was a small price to pay to take a public shot at his wife’s liberalism, but still not very fiscally conservative.
Tom Levenson
@West of the Rockies: I agree. I also think that in the open, it is the death cry of a failed political movement.
Is it dangerous — damn straight. But Nov. 6 2012 showed me in a way I wasn’t sure of before that it ain’t selling to the American polity as a whole. In that context, the more crazy they get, the more secure the connections that form within the actual mix of folks that make up an enduring American majority. Or so I hope.
Bhaal
Charging more money because of differing political views is a slippery slope to tyranny.
Keith G
Is it time to file “butt hurt” away to joint “frist”, “spot on” and other such over-used exclamations? It no longer conveys any punch and now just seems lazy.
Darkrose
@trollhattan: I hate the Davis Whole Foods. Pricier than TJ’s and parking’s only marginally better.
scav
@jl: What I love about that whole Boehner: Obama Wants To ‘Annihilate’ The GOP rachetting up is that it’s +m up from and subsequent to the Obama Wants To Destroy the Nation schtick. Revealing. Destroying the United States and Capitalism™ itself was merely warming up, des amuse bouches to the main course.
Chris T.
If you follow the link to the KSL news story, it says “fast forward nearly five years” (to January 2013). So, four and some large fraction of 1 years ago was early 2009. Now, what was the problem in 2009? Ah, yes:
The problem he had was that because George Bush had been president for eight years, oil and gas drilling was crashing. Alas, alack, a Democrat had just won the presidency! And now five years later his business is thriving! Wait, don’t I mean dead? … wait, no, thriving. All because of Obummer, his business is thriving, it’s such a tragedy!
Petorado
As with guns, war, and other right-wing icons, this wingnut is overcompensating for a deficiency. This guy is a self-described “long-time healthfood fan” in the reddest of red Utah. You don’t think he caught some crap about that in ranching and drilling rig country? I think that among this guy’s reason for being a jerk, beside party affiliation, is trying to sell healthy food in an insular town that hasn’t met a fast food franchise it didn’t like. Maybe now avocado, spinach and fresh apple juice smoothies are cool when served with a bag of salted dicks.
Roger Moore
@Origuy:
And the main gateway to Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. Not to mention that most of the fossil fuel development in the area is on BLM land. But government is evil.
trollhattan
@Darkrose:
Unless Mackey arranges for $ciento1ogy-like event security, I don’t think his welcome will be what he imagines. But hubris or arrogance might also have a role here.
Speaking of $ciento1ogy, oh boy! What might pop up in discovery?
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/01/23/5135979/calif-couple-sues-over-donations.html#storylink=cpy
Roger Moore
@Petorado:
I think you should visit Vernal before saying that kind of crap. I visited the place a couple of years ago, and it was far from fast food hell. They actually had a pretty good selection of restaurants for a city that size, mostly local places. I don’t think a healthy smoothie place would have much trouble there.
Forum Transmitted Disease
That’s all good. I shitcanned three contractors last month alone who showed up to the jobsite with Tea Party stickers on their trucks.
Don’t give a shit if they’re a low bidder, I don’t give those people our cash. I can always find a non-psycho to do it for the same amount, and the funny thing is that they usually do better work.
mir13
@patroclus: I have noticed that he and Touchy Turtle have put a flourish on their asshattery of late. Quite truculent, in fact. Gee, I wonder if it’s ‘cos they’re scared…OF A GIRL! Who hasn’t even said she would run. But I love that she’s in their kitchen. Smells like cookies and freedom.
les
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
I’m not surprised; I’ve stopped patronizing most any biz with “christian” in the name or on the sign; they seem to think that they’re so good with god, they don’t need to give a shit about the customer.
Bubblegum Tate
And he’s giving the money to the fucking Heritage Foundation? What a maroon.
Bubblegum Tate
@Some Guy:
Oh, it’s the same sort of dumbass stunt as the “Affirmative Action Bake Sale” that the College Republicans love to trot out.
Petorado
@Roger Moore:
I have been through Vernal several times before, though not since the latest drilling boom began. Things have assuredly improved since then, but it was at the bottom of a bust then and they had a lot of for sale and going out of business signs. I familiar with that environment.
Rosie Outlook
@Some Guy: I don’t think it’s a good analogy because you can’t change your race, and it’s difficult and expensive to change your sex, but easy to walk into this jerk’s shop and say, “No, I’m not a liberal,” even if you are.
Rosie Outlook
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Is that legal in your jurisdiction ? In government contracting, it would be a big no-no.
smith
Wow, a whole $3 to the Heritage Foundation.
Please, this tool did this for the publicity. When his business dries up because he’s such a shitty businessman, he’ll cry and scream for a government bailout like the rest of them.
I’d lie to get the lower price, then say “Psych,! I’m a liberal, you dumbass”
What is he going to do, demand I pay an extra dollar after the purchase has been made?
Mnemosyne
Am I reading this wrong, or is this guy taking his employees’ tips and “donating” them? Is that even legal?
If it’s just tips that people give to him, obviously that’s his own business.
nota bene
This isn’t really relevant, but I just wanted to note for the record that the mouseover on the painting says “hooch_woman_drinking_with_soldiers”….I had to scroll down to learn that “hooch” referred to the artist. Oh.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Am I reading this wrong, or is this guy taking his employees’ tips and “donating” them? Is that even legal?
Do wingnuts even know that the first rule of eating food away from home is to never, ever, ever humiliate the staff?
Sure as shit, any proud Good Ol’ Boy who drinks there while bragging about the tips going to conservative causes is ingesting the occasional body fluid in his smoothie.
(Actually, that would be a good rumour to start spreading…)
John Fremont
Donating to the Heritage Foundation? Aren’t they the same guys that devised our current healthcare reform way back in the late 80’s? Ya know individual mandates, state insurance exchanges etc. Once known as Bob Dole’s plan, then Romneycare now ZOMG GOV’T Takeover!!!!
rdale
@Roger Moore: I lived in Vernal for years some time ago, knew many people there and visited and worked around there a great deal, and still get out there now and then. I know the particular place well, on Main and 5th East, across from the 7/11 where the oilfield workers get their coffee; it’s one of those “death to business” corners, where there have been dozens of short-lived businesses, so I guess you have to give the guy credit for that. Next door is a pretty good brew pub, a local river runners hangout. Vernal has a small but active and committed liberal/progressive community, in a sea of Mormon groupthink and tea tantrum indignation. But they did build a very nice brand new library recently–and the business is across the street from a nice museum–and it really is a beautiful place. Vast pine forests in view on the Uinta Mountains to the north; mysterious, empty desert–oil and gas country, but also Ute Indian reservation–to the south, the Green River. It’s as pretty in its own way as Moab, the much more famous recreation destination to the south, but there’s a strong anti-outsider current running through the place, which keeps the tourist trade down.