We seriously have the dumbest political discourse on planet earth.
It is, but knowing that political discourse has devolved to that level... Unfortunately, I think politicians are going to have to start getting in the habit of making more generalized critiques rather than singling out specific brands as to not get any innocent companies engulfed in "culture war" type issues...especially if that company was intentionally trying to remain apolitical.
It's another thing if a company made the choice to enter that arena and jump in the fray as some sort of marketing strategy, then they've opened themselves up to that sort of thing. (for instance, The DailyWire started releasing their own brand of razors, chocolates, etc... If he wants to take a jab at them, go for it)
I think for this particular case, it wasn't just a one-time off the cuff remark, and it was actually making potentially false statement that could damage the company's reputation.
Here's a non-Breitbart link about it
President Biden’s State of the Union on Thursday was fiery, political and, at times, unscripted. The president diverged from his prepared remarks several notable times with off-the-cuff comments an…
thehill.com
Biden has previously brought up the size of a Snickers bar and the idea of shrinkflation. He said during a campaign event in Las Vegas last month: “They haven’t raised the price of a Snickers bars. They just took 10 percent of it out … it’s a lot smaller. So that’s how they’re making more money.”
So, in all fairness, I don't think it's necessarily "petty" or unreasonable for a company to release a statement defending their brand after being twice accused by the president in public speaking engagements of "trying to dupe customers for profit"
In all actuality, if Biden's publicly accused them twice of reducing the product size to trick customers in order to make more money, and they can prove that they haven't, statements like that could actually border on defamation.
Given that Trump is currently involved in defamation suits, and knowing the GOP's propensity for tit-for-tat style politics, name-dropping specific brands (in a negative way) with impromptu remarks that may not be true is something that Biden will have to be mindful of. I don't know where the CEO of Mars comes down politically, but if Biden were to accidentally do that involving a brand whose CEO is a Trump supporter, I could see a "retaliation plot" ensuing.
