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Right-wingers are lashing out at a coffee company that advertised itself as MAGA in a cup, following an interview several of the company’s founders did on Friday with the New York Times .
Black Rifle Coffee, a veteran-founded company that has become a darling of the conservative right with a conscious brand of pro-gun, pro-military, and pro-police – as well as an “anti-hipster” message – produced blends like “Roasted Silencer Smooth” and “AK-47 espresso,” which have been hailed over the years by all kinds of far-right figures.
But for the past year or so, their logo has been featured on insurgents invading the U.S. Capitol building, worn by Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois teenager who killed two Black Lives Matter protesters in Wisconsin l last summer, and as a recurring theme in almost every anti-containment, anti-mask and anti-vaccine protest during the pandemic.
In the New York Times article, titled “Can the Black Rifle Coffee Company Become the Starbucks of the Right?” the founders of the company tried to distance themselves from the extremists who in recent years have reclaimed the company logo and message and carried it in all kinds of situations they found worrying.
“How do you build a cool, irreverent, pro-Second Amendment, pro-America brand in the MAGA era without doubling down on the MAGA movement and also not being called a [expletive] RINO by the guys at MAGA? ”Evan Hafer, one of the founders of Black Rifle, asked The Times.
“I would never want my brand to be represented in this way, in this form,” Hafer added, “because it’s not me.”
In particular, Hafer used the interview to speak out against the Proud Boys and other violent white nationalist groups who he said “hijacked” the brand’s imagery.
” Racism [expletive] really annoys me, “Hafer said.” I hate racist people and proud of boys. Like, I’m going to pay them to leave my clientele. I would gladly cut all these people off my [expletive] customer database and pay them to get the [expletive] outside.”
It didn’t win many fans among the far-right pundits who had reliably sold the company’s products over the years.
“How to Destroy Your Business in One Step: Give an interview to the New York Times ransacking your customers,” Raheem Kassam, editor of the right-wing newspaper, The National Pulse, wrote on Twitter.
“Looks like Black Rifle Coffee, a company that got famous thanks to the Conservatives, is now trying to distance itself from the Conservatives,” said Brigitte Gabriel, founder of the influential conservative group ACT for America, tweeted. “I’ve never tried their products before and it looks like I never will.”
Mike Cernovich, the conspiracy that defended the widely debunked pizzagate theory, said the company “was on its knees” by accepting the interview. Specifically, he highlighted a passage about how the company adopted a new logo featuring Saint Michael the Archangel, a patron saint of military personnel who the Pentagon also considers a symbol of white supremacy.
It was a theme among conservatives denouncing the company, many of whom believe Black Rifle’s contempt for Christian iconography amounted to “awakening” or “political correctness.”
“Black Rifle Coffee prefers St. Milley the Wokeangel,” conservative TV host John Cardillo wrote on Twitter.
The New York Times research article also introduced a new dilemma for righties who found themselves at a crossroads: what coffee business would have promote their vision of the world without flinching, the implications are damned? Many took to the comment thread on these widely shared posts to promote coffee brands they saw as more sympathetic to their cause.
Carl Higbie, former host of Navy Seal and Newsmax, promotes a business called “Right Wing Brew.” Michigan-based Brushtail Coffee wrote, “Brushtail Coffee knows Rittenhouse has fallen victim to a vile mob mentality,” adding a flashing emoji to boot.
And Stocking Mill Coffee, which requires you to select “no” to the question “Are you for common sense gun laws?” to enter its website, spent much of Saturday touting its beers to conservatives with statements such as “We are not only pro-2A, we are pro-Saint MichelThe company also added the “disgusting” coupon code to its website, an apparent dig at Black Rifle.
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