Budweiser’s New Super Bowl Ad Throws Major Shade at Trump’s Travel Ban

To borrow — AKA “pull a Melania” — from a currently popular Twitter joke format: The year is 2017. America stands divided. The resistance is currently being led by Teen Vogue, a dictionary Twitter account, Chief Jim Hopper, and… Budweiser.

For real. The brewing giant just revealed the company’s Super Bowl spot for this year. And it features approximately zero cute puppies, majestic Clydesdales, or hard-working Midwestern farmers and their pickup trucks.

What it does feature, instead: a heartstring-tugging tale of one immigrant’s hard-luck journey to the States, dealing with taunts and insults and flaming riverboats before finding his new home, and ultimately, achieving the American dream. That man? Anheuser-Busch co-founder Adolphus Busch, who left Germany for the U.S. in the 1850s.

That’s right. Budweiser seems to have officially joined the Resistance. Or at least their marketing department has. Because the one-minute spot’s about as subtle as renaming your flagship beer “America.” Ahem.

Yes, we’re used to tear-jerking Super Bowl ads that toy with our emotions like Tom Brady targeting a fourth-string cornerback. That’s normal. But we’re not used to seeing corporations as gigantic as Budweiser jump into the political fray like this. During the biggest event on the American sports calendar, no less. That’s definitely not normal. (Then again, nothing about 2017 has been…)

So far, the company’s been playing coy on the ad’s meaning, telling AdWeek, “There’s really no correlation with anything else that’s happening in the country.” Which is about as believable as the current U.S. Press Secretary telling the media that Trump’s disastrous new refugee policy isn’t a “Muslim ban.”

But fine, maybe Budweiser’s been working on this ad spot for months, and simply didn’t realize the political waters they’d be wading into with the ad. Or maybe they’re just hoping right-wingers will boycott them the same way they’ve been boycotting Starbucks. By buying more in protest. In which case, it’ll be money well spent.

Put us down for a two-four.

H/T: TheWrap