Right Wing Coffee Brands Want to Make Caffeine Great Again
It must be exhausting to be Alex Jones. All the yelling, barechested meat consumption, conspiracy theorizing, live-streamed bombasting at strangers along the streets for their perceived lack of intellectual rigor—then running after them to shout some more when they flip him off. It requires, presumably, something other than an endless well of conviction in some truly bizarre and harmful worldviews. It requires coffee.
The far-right Infowars radio host and conspiracy theorist recently had a "scalding" cup of it dashed in his face by BlöödHag singer Jake Stratton after Jones confronted him in downtown Seattle. ("Tell people intellectually who you are," demanded Jones of the passerby. "I'm your mama," replied Stratton and doused him with the contents of his cup, live on Periscope for all to witness.) That was not Jones' preferred method of intake or ideal blend, and we know because Jones hawks his own special blend of Wake Up America: Patriot Blend 100% Organic Coffee in the Health & Wellness section of the online Infowars store.
Plain old ground beans? That's for sleepy cucks! Jones' favorite coffee is sustainably grown and sourced in a "beyond Fair Trade" manner from Chiapas farmers in the mountains of Southern Mexico, hand-harvested, then "custom-roasted and freshly packed by fellow patriots." Jones claims that headaches and other negative effects from your standard lib-grown swill are negated by this blend and he takes it a step further with the herbal mushroom-extract-amped Immune Support Blend 100% Organic Coffee, which he claims enhances immune response and physical stamina—not to mention patriotism.
Jones, or at least the shop's copywriter, says "The spirit of the 1776 revolution is truly alive with this exceptional Wake Up America: Immune Support Blend. Our founders forged this nation with guts and determination, and it is with that same spirit that Infowars battles for the liberty, honor and freedoms of patriots like you everywhere. For 18 years, Alex Jones has been fighting to awaken the Sleeping Giant that is free humanity. Now you can get an incredible cup of coffee, support the Infowars and Wake Up America!"
He is not alone on his path toward conservative morning beverages—though his route may be more twisted than most. There are many worthy, wonderful veteran-owned, America-loving, charitably-minded coffee businesses out there that are not specifically tethering themselves to an explicitly conservative political message (we'll shine a spotlight on some more of them in the near future). But boy howdy are some of 'em going at it with both barrels against what they see as an industry dominated by liberals.
Black Rifle Coffee Company owner Evan Hafer notes on the About Us section of the brand's website that the Salt Lake City-based company was started "to provide a high-quality, roast-to-order coffee to the pro-2A and veteran communities" and "founded on the principles which made this nation great." He continues, "We strive to emancipate the conservative American from corporate coffee." By this, presumably, Hafer means Starbucks.
When the coffee mega-chain announced its plan to hire 10,000 refugees, Hafer told FOX Business News that he intends to hire 10,000 fellow veterans at BRCC's planned retail locations. “I think that it’s really important for everybody to know that if someone is going to come out in basically a press release defining themselves as progressive, there are definitive conservative options for coffee,” Hafer told FOX's Ashley Webster. “We have an opportunity to face real issues, address them head on and vote everyday with our dollar.” (For the record, Starbucks has pledged to hire 25,000 veterans and military spouses by 2025.)
Many of Black Rifle's coffees are named after firearms and tactical gear (AK-47 Espresso, Silencer Smooth Blend, and V-Tac Berserker Blend), or governmental principles (Freedom Blend and Coffee or Die). While BRCC doesn't yet have any stand-alone stores, they've got a robust online shop, and a rabid fandom, especially among customers at Bentonville, Arkansas' Guns & Grounds. The gun and coffee shop—which opened in April and boasts a drive-through window—sells cups of BRCC brew (they deemed it "liquid liberty and logic" in an Instagram post) by the 12-ounce pistol, 16-ounce rifle, and 20-ounce bazooka sizes, alongside Trigger Teas, Silencer Smoothies, rifles, and ammo.
Lake City Coffee's Russell Volz uses his blog to share his roasting and brewing expertise, and vent his frustrations with what he says is the primarily liberal coffee industry. In one entry, entitled "If CNN is Fake News, Then Is Starbucks Fake Coffee?" Voltz notes, "Starbucks has an agenda. Not surprisingly, its agenda doesn’t differ to much from CNN’s agenda. In fact, both organizations clearly support the LGBT, anti-gun, anti-Christian, and anti-first amendment movements. Although Starbucks isn’t creating fake news, they are, in my humble opinion, creating fake coffee."
In another post called "A Conservative’s Guide To The Coffee Industry," Volz takes issue with industry jargon he feels is inhospitable to conservatives' straightforward use of language. "Like the entertainment and news media industries; the coffee industry is primarily run by liberals, e.g.,'Starbucks'. Need I say more? The problem isn’t that they’re liberals. The problem is that what you think they’re saying, they’re actually saying something entirely different."
He shares the example of the term fair trade, writing "To the coffee industry, fair trade means, 'you should pay us more money for our coffee because we care more for the farmers than the other guys.' In reality, fair trade started out as a social movement to help poor farmers. This is where the law of entropy takes over, and this social movement de-evolved into a marketing gimmick, which actually cost the poor farmers more money to be 'fair trade' certified." (The farmers, he notes in another entry, "sure as hell aren't liberal.") The same obfuscation, he says, is true for the term organic, which can refer to any number of certification organizations or processes, and is confusing to the customer. Volz's solution: "Don’t get hung up on all these terms. Drink what you like and buy it fresh."
Hey, man—it's a free country. Put your hard-earned dollars behind businesses that align with your politics, or just go with the blends that put a smile on your face and some pep in your step. The best part of morning in America is that you get to decide for yourself.
