The Morning Briefing: Black Rifle Coffee CEO Was a Moron for Trusting the New York Times

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Black Rifle Can’t Step Out of This Mess So Easily

Happy Wednesday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. I think TV trays should have TVs in them.

I don’t often get caught up in the brouhaha du jour, especially when it’s yesterjour‘s brouhaha. Sometimes you just have to jump in though, however belatedly. It is most definitely what the Founding Fathers would have wanted.

Whilst bouncing around the intertubez the past couple of days I kept seeing Black Rifle Coffee pop up a lot. I finally decided to catch up on the story.

It should be noted up front that I’m not predisposed to liking brands or artists just because we share the same politics. I like what I like. Politics aren’t involved in the determination of what I enjoy. In fact, I’m a bit put off when that’s part of the marketing.

I don’t know much about Black Rifle Coffee other than it’s veteran-owned and I see a lot of conservatives pimping it. I tried it once, but this isn’t a review so there isn’t any reason to get into that. The company seems to be based on a marketing plan that revolves around a message that says, “Hey conservatives, we’re totally on your side!”

Given that, it was easy to see why feelings were a bit ruffled after Black Rifle CEO Evan Hafer gave an interview to the New York Times Magazine and said some…stuff.

Matt with some background:

Black Rifle Coffee is a premium, small-batch, roast-to-order, veteran-owned coffee company based out of Utah. It has seen tremendous success over the past couple of years and has been dubbed the conservative alternative to Starbucks. But social media has been abuzz over the past few days regarding an interview Black Rifle CEO Evan Hafer gave to the New York Times Magazine. In response to the interview, The Post Millennial wrote that Black Rifle “goes woke, throws customers under the bus in bizarre NYT interview.” In addition, Newsmax said the company had called out some of its customers as “a repugnant group of people.”

Predictably, outrage ensued. Hafer quickly sought to address the situation. More from Matt:

Hafer quickly debunked the notion that he made derogatory remarks about BRCC’s customers or conservatives and then proceeded to explain how the New York Times deliberately twisted his words and took them out of context. According to Hafer, his conversation with the NYT Magazine reporter was in the context of racism and anti-Semitism in America in light of Hafer being the target of an organized attack last year because of “my last name and my heritage.”

“We were purely discussing that,” Hafer says, and he was not conflating those groups with conservatives.

“The New York Times, as we know, the chances of them being objective were fairly slim, but we gave them the opportunity,” he added. He went on to mention veterans issues he hoped to bring attention to. But, unfortunately, the New York Times chose to go with “the salacious headline” about the company instead.

Hafer reiterated that racists and anti-Semites have no place in his company.

“I really need you guys to get the facts straight on this, which is: There’s no chance in hell I’m gonna talk s–t about conservatives to the New York Times. It’s just not gonna happen.”

I have a thought or two or three about this.

As a committed skeptic, it’s not unusual for me to think that Hafer might merely be a bull-you-know-what artist who has been lying and using conservatives just to make money. However, I have conservative friends who rep Black Rifle so I’d like to give the company and Hafer the benefit of the doubt.

If I do that, I have no choice but to believe that Hafer is a straight-up paste-eating moron.

How long do the mainstream media hacks have to keep exposing themselves as frothing-at-the-mouth haters of conservatives before conservatives get it? If Hafer truly thought that the Times was going to give him a fair shake and that this would be a good marketing opportunity, then he’s too monumentally stupid to be around anything that isn’t toddler-proofed. It’s like walking into a biker bar while wearing a tuxedo and being surprised you got your a** kicked after you called all of them wusses. It’s just super easy to predict how some things are going to work out.

Conservatives shouldn’t be treating The New York Times and its ilk with any kind of courtesy. Unless you want to be a turncoat, it’s not going to work out well for you. Don’t hang out with an enemy who spends all day pointing a knife at you then turn away and act surprised when you get stabbed in the back.

And here’s the most important lesson for conservatives: don’t pull the knife out, hand it back to your enemy, then turn away again.

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