Back in the last pandemic, the right was busy with their eternal manufactured culture war. Manufacturing this war often involves using hyperbole and lies. Some years ago, the right was outraged about Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head. The right claimed Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head were cancelled by the left. In my adopted state of Florida and other states, the right has been active purging school libraries and managing educational content to ensure it is ideologically acceptable. It is, one must infer, only cancellation when the left is accused of doing it.
As I noted in earlier essays, Dr. Seuss’ books have not been banned. While the right’s narrative around Dr. Seuss implied that popular books such as the Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham were cancelled, the reality is that Dr. Seuss’ estate chose to stop publishing six books because they contain illustrations that “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.” These books seem to have been poor sellers and most people seem unfamiliar with them.
Politicians and pundits on the right generally did not focus on these six books, and instead mislead the public by implying either that all Dr. Seuss books had been cancelled or the popular books had been cancelled. For example, Ted Cruz sold signed (by him) copies of Green Eggs and Ham and raised $125,000. He claimed that this was strike back against cancel culture. While Cruz has a history with that book, it is not one of the six books that the estate decided to stop selling making this a bit of absurdist political theater.
At the time, the right was clever to not focus on the six books that were taken out of print. Some of them do have racist content and at the time explicitly defending racist content would have been less than ideal. However, the right’s base gets the message: the right has not rushed to battle censorship in general, such as efforts to get books removed from libraries. Instead, they focus on defending what seems to be racist and sexist content.
There were also good reasons to use the popular books as their examples: “cancelling” Green Eggs and Ham would be absurd. By lying, the right can claim that “the left” is crazy and out of control. To use an analogy, consider Coca Cola’s decision to stop manufacturing Tab. Imagine someone wanted to make that into a culture war issue, but realized that most people do not care about Tab and Tab sales were very weak. So instead of talking about Tab, they held up cans of Coke and Diet Coke, implying that these sodas had been “cancelled” despite being readily available. Imagine Ted Cruz selling signed cans of Coke, claiming that he will use the money to strike back against cancel culture. The same thing happened with Dr. Seuss: the estate stopped publishing their version of Tab but are still selling their Coke and Diet Coke.
As I have argued before, when companies change their product lines it is usually because they think doing so will increase profits. If the “radical left” controlled companies to the degree the right claimed, they would use that power in more meaningful ways, such as forcing companies to improve wages, benefits and working conditions. As such, the idea that the out-of-control left is abusing hapless companies is absurd. Now, onto branding.
Some years ago, Hasbro decided to change the Mr. Potato Head brand to Potato Head. Mr. Potato Head and Mrs. Potato Head are still available and sold under those names. The company did make the statement that “Hasbro is making sure all feel welcome in the Potato Head world by officially dropping the Mr. from the Mr. Potato Head brand name and logo to promote gender equality and inclusion.” There is no evidence that Hasbro was subject to coercion or forced to make this decision.
Some on the right claimed Mr. Potato Head had been cancelled but were not clear about what they meant. Some seem to have meant that Mr. Potato Head would no longer be manufactured, which was not true. Others might have simply been angry that Hasbro changed “Mr. Potato Head” to “Potato Head” while maintaining the Mr. and Mrs. versions of the toys. On the face of it, this seemed to be a silly fight: a toy company slightly changed the brand name for a toy line while retaining the toys. A deeper look reveals that it was, in fact, a silly fight.
But from a political standpoint, this was a clever move: by misleading their base about the facts, they generated outrage against “the left” and distracted them away from the fact that the Republicans seem to have little in the way of policies or interest in engaging with meaningful problems. They also do not need to do anything: there is no problem to solve, no results to achieve. There is just an opportunity for unfounded outrage that will feed the base until they can find a situation suitable for manufacturing pointless outrage.
Corporations changing their products and brands does not appear to create any meaningful problems as they are simply changing to maximize their profits. Consumer tastes and values change over time and that is what happened then and what will continue to happen. There was nothing sinister going on in these cases, no problem to solve, no need of state action. The right is simply manufacturing a problem where none currently exists, other than the “problem” that consumers change over time.