There’s a reason why the government should not be in the endorsement business.
There’s a reason why the government should not be in the endorsement business.
A few years ago, Saturday Night Live had a recurring joke needling Fox News for the advertisers it lost any time the on-air talent made controversial remarks. In 2018, after Laura Ingraham had ridiculed some of the Parkland, Fla., shooting survivors, the show imagined the network was resigned to promoting “Warm Ice Cream,” “My Hemorrhoid Donut,” and Fox News host Brian Kilmeade’s new book, “Andrew Jackson and the Battle for Hillary’s Emails.”
But if Fox News was having difficulty drawing advertisements for products other than, say, “Trumpy Bear,” they may have figured out a way to move product within the confines of their own programming. Earlier this week, host Sean Hannity and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. enjoyed a televised meal at Steak ’n Shake, a fast food restaurant that just announced it would, as RFK Jr. has urged, begin cooking its french fries in beef tallow instead of seed oils.
In a bit straight out of a Christopher Guest mockumentary, RFK Jr., who may be the only human to actually have negative body fat, throws back some of the food they have been served and proudly declares that “people are raving about these fries.”
“They are amazing!” Hannity yelps.
Maybe someday we will find out exactly how this theater of caloric Armageddon came about. Do businesses know that if they bow to the wishes of Trump administration officials, they could get free advertising? Do Trump’s cabinet members promise they will promote companies that capitulate to their demands?
Regardless, the whole bit was simply an advertisement for a private company put on by a Trump cabinet member. Yet this was merely an appetizer.
The next day, Trump himself, seeking to soothe the bruised ego of the world’s richest man, held a press conference at the White House to convince Americans to buy Tesla automobiles. Tesla, of course, is owned by Trump adviser Elon Musk, who, through his Department of Government Efficiency, is trying to lay off large swaths of the federal workforce. As a backlash to Musk’s erratic, slash-and-burn behavior, many Americans are refusing to buy his cars and Cybertrucks, which are currently the cause of over 98 percent of eye rolls conducted in the U.S.
During the staged sell-a-thon, Trump suggested the people protesting against Tesla should be labeled “domestic terrorists.” In a social media post, he claimed people boycotting Tesla were behaving “illegally and collusively.”
As Americans watch their retirement accounts wash away under the weight of Trump’s new tariff policy (or the markets’ inability to figure out what it is), the president recognized the one man who is truly oppressed in these times: the professional internet troll worth $325 billion whose net worth is dropping as a result of forces entirely within his own control.
In the Trump era, it seems almost quaint to explain why American politics has certain rules, but for the people of the future fighting the robots, it is worth pointing out that it used to be illegal for politicians to endorse products. For the same reason that only citizens born in America can become president — because his or her loyalties might be split between two countries — presidents have been prohibited from holding jobs outside that of chief executive. When profits are at stake, loyalty to one’s business interests may interfere with one’s duty to the nation.
And money can buy a lot of loyalty. Musk was already Trump’s largest single donor, but in the days leading up to the Tesla debacle, the billionaire suggested he would pour another $100 million into the president’s political operations. Meanwhile, Musk’s team of government investigators has yet to find any “fraud” in the $38 billion in federal subsidies Musk has received for his various businesses. The whole scheme has the odor of a Steak ’n Shake chicken sandwich left in a hot Tesla for a week.
Of course, there is a long bipartisan history of friends and family profiting from their close relations with the president, as evidenced recently when Hunter Biden found out nobody wanted to buy his appalling paintings once his dad was no longer in charge. More like “Vincent van No.” Trump’s last administration was littered with examples of the president and his family cashing in on the power of the presidency. Congressional documents show that during his first term, foreign dignitaries spent over $750,000 at Trump hotels.
Biden, too, did his part to promote favored vehicle manufacturers, taking a hybrid electric Jeep for a test drive at the White House, touting automakers’ EV goals, and allowing top officials to get behind the wheel of new EVs at the D.C. auto show.
And there have been other politicians in the past who have used their names to move product. Newspapers from the early 20th century feature ads in which congressmen endorse a bogus tonic called Pe-Ru-Na, which is supposed to cure all “Catarrhal Affections.” According to the ad copy, the congressmen “use it themselves to guard against the effects of the intense strain of public life; to ward off the ill effects of the changeable climate of Washington.” Who is looking out for the poor congressmen?
This doesn’t mean members of Congress should stop promoting businesses in their districts; that’s just politics. For sure, it would be hard to beat the endorsement a local theater’s performance of Beetlejuice received from Representative Lauren Boebert, for instance.
That said, no president should use the government to boost the wealth of businesses that support his political well-being. Conservatives used to rail against “crony capitalism,” but now it appears there is no other kind.