When beer is forced to make policy

What would America be without its immigrants? Economically, probably still cowboy and farmer country, culturally similarly dusty. The land of seemingly unlimited possibilities has always liked to adorn itself with the names of former foreigners, as if they were the sole creatures of the American way of life. For example, there is Henry A. Kissinger (= Heinz Alfred Kissinger), the first U.S. Secretary of State with a Franconian accent; Levi Strauss (= Löb Strauss), who dressed buttocks in blue all over the world;

Henry E. Steinway (= Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg), who elicits heavenly sounds from wood and cast iron; rocket engineer Wernher von Braun; language school founder Maximilian Delphinius Berlitz (= David Berlizheimer), psychoanalyst Erich Fromm or Wilhelm Böing, the father of aircraft engineer William Edward Boeing. All Americans, right? What does nationality have to do with ability?

D'accord, even for the Germans Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is mostly a German, while Adolf Hitler may remain an Austrian. And with regard to the U.S., it has so far seemed more endearing than mendacious that anyone who makes a difference and has set foot on American soil at some point automatically becomes an American. People like to boast about the country's successful sons and daughters.

In the USA, it is now "the millionaire against the dishwasher".

But suddenly everything is different: In the USA, it is no longer "from dishwasher to millionaire" but "the millionaire against the dishwasher". While large parts of the population protest and it doesn't help them at all, the world holds its breath in shock and the American economy runs for cover, at least advertising reacts - at least if you are receptive to clear but well-packaged messages.

The Budweiser brewery has already posted the full-length commercial it will show at the Super Bowl finals on the Internet (Bit.ly/2knCvmh). It chronicles the journey to America of Adolphus Busch, a young German with an unshakable dream of brewing beer who eventually founds the Anheuser-Busch brewery with Eberhard Anheuser, also a U.S. immigrant. "You dont look like you're from around here, go back home," Busch has to be told as he struggles through rain, mud and fire toward his dream. Busch counters all this with just one sentence: "I want to brew a beer." Message from Budweiser: "When nothing stops your dream, this is the beer we drink."

On the one hand, Budweiser's film is a very American commercial, quoting the dishwasher's millionaire dream. But it's just as much a stretched left in the direction of the country's new most powerful man, who doesn't keep quiet about his opinion of immigrants, denying them their right to exist while the world looks on. True, xenophobia and prejudice couldn't stop Adolphus Busch in 1857 - but what would Busch's path look like in 2017? That's the unspoken question that resonates in the spot, making it an important piece of politics.

At the Tagi meeting on January 31, Philipp Hildebrand called on representatives of academia, the media, politics and the money industry to tell the truth, so that "post-factuals" and "alternative facts" - the new American way of living - don't overshadow everything. Yes, the truth. Hasn't it been self-evident to all of us until now? And yet there are people in the highest decision-making positions in the world who spread lies and yet retain their power. How can and may this be? While we try to work through these questions intellectually, the lies continue, ruining dreams, opportunities, lives.

High time for each of us to open our eyes and mouths and - in true American fashion - firmly believe that this will do some good. A spiteful tweet from Mr. Stormy's haircut commenting on the Budweiser commercial has yet to be delivered. Perhaps a good start.

Anne-Friederike Heinrich, Editor-in-Chief

f.heinrich@werbewoche.ch