Sept. 12, 2025

Trump Country Radio, More Cracker Barrel Chaos, and the Supreme Court Explains Math

Show Notes
Transcript

A Florida radio station goes full MAGA as “Trump Country 93.7” and triples its ratings. Cracker Barrel’s $700 million rebrand crashes harder than grandma’s biscuits. And Supreme Court justices remind America that two terms means… two. Plus, why “Trump 2028” hats might be the punchline of the week. All that and more on Ballot.

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Calaruga Shark Media from Florida, where even the radio is partisan.

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This is valid. That's right. Let's punch in FM preset

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number four and take a listen. Hi. I'm Patrick Gutfield

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and a Florida radio station figured out the secret to

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success just put Trump's name on everything and watch the rating.

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Sword Well and Fort Myers rebranded as Trump Country ninety

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three point seven FM, and their audience has tripled. Their

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slogan is make country great Again, which is either brilliant

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marketing or the most predictable thing ever, depending on your perspective.

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The station's president, Jim Schwartzel, decided to rebrand after watching

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all the Trump boat parades in his area. He looked around,

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saw a bunch of people with Trump flags on their

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boats and thought, you know what, this needs more Trump.

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So on inauguration date they went full maga with an

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AI generated logo of Trump wearing a cowboy hat, because

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apparently regular Trump wasn't quite country enough. Now they have

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listeners tuning in for an average of five hours and

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forty five minutes per week, which means people are literally

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spending their entire workday listening to Trump Country radio. That's

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more dedication than most people have to their actual jobs.

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Their promotional content includes a Trump impersonator offering trips to

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Mexico on a big, beautiful cruise ship as part of

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a fake deportation contest. The fake Trump says, you want

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to be deported, You've got to listen. That's how it works,

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legal listening only, which is either satire or the most

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confusing contest rules ever written. They also have something called

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the Cancel Bowl, where listeners call in to describe the

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most pathetic woke thing you've seen. Winners get what they

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call the Trump Country Tailgate Command Kid, which includes a flamethrower,

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grill starter, ribs, a Camo cutting board, and flag toothpicks,

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because nothing says patriotism quite like tiny flags in your appetizers.

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The grand prize is five thousand dollars cash to spend

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on guns, grills, steaks, Ammo flags, or anything guaranteed to

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trigger your liberal cousin. They're basically paying people to annoy

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their relatives at family gatherings, which is either genius or

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the reason Thanksgiving dinner gets awkward. Schwartzel drives around in

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a nineteen eighty five Ford f one point fifty that's

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covered in Trump Country branding because subtlety is apparently not

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part of the business plan. And now an important update

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about Cracker Barrel. Remember when Cracker Barrel tried to go

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modern and it lasted about as long as a diet

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that starts on a Monday. Seven hundred million dollars they

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spent on this rebrand. That's seven hundred million dollars written out,

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not the symbol, only to have customers take one look

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at their sleek new logo and say absolutely not. The

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chain decided to ditch their classic old timer with a

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barrel logo for something that looked like it was designed

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by someone who thinks vintage means anything older than their iPhone.

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They went with a gold shield and contemporary font, which

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is restaurants speak for We hired a consultant who charges

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by the buzzword four restaurants. They managed to renovate exactly

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four out of six hundred and sixty locations before the

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complaints rolled in like a thunderstorm in August. The CEO,

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Julie fels Messino, who came from Starbucks and Taco Bell,

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which should have been everyone's first clue, thought she could

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take a place that's basically a museum of American chotchkes,

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and turn it into something that wouldn't look out of

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place in a trendy neighborhood. The whole thing started when

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they flew social media influencers to Manhattan for a pop

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up location and a country music concert. Nothing says authentic

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roadside Americana quite like flying internet personalities to New York

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City for a marketing event. That's like trying to prove

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you're down to earth by hiring a private jet. Conservative

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activists started calling for Boycott's competitors pile on, and suddenly

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Cracker Barrel found themselves in the middle of a culture

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war over whether their restaurants should look like your grandmother's

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attic or a doctor's waiting room. The company quickly backpedaled,

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promising that the vintage Americana you love will always be here.

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The rocking chairs on the porch are fireplaces and peg games. Translation,

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we're keeping all the stuff you actually come here for. Sorry,

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we tried to fix what wasn't broken. So now Cracker

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Barrel is back to being exactly what it was before,

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except seven hundred million dollars poorer and with a valuable

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lesson about not messing with people's biscuits and nostalgia. So

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apparently we've reached the point where Supreme Court justices have

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to explain basic math to the country. Two Supreme Court justices,

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one conservative, one liberal, both had to go on television

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this week and confirm that, yes, the twenty second Amendment

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means presidents can only serve two terms, which feels like

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having to explain that stops mean you should stop. Justice

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Amy Cony Barrett went on Fox News and when asked

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about Trump potentially running for a third term, she said,

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that's what the amendment says, right after FDR had four terms.

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That's what that amendment says. She had to use the

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tone you normally reserved for explaining to a toddler why

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they can't have ice cream for breakfast. The amendment literally

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says no person shall be elected to the office of

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the President more than twice. It's not written in ancient

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Latin or hidden in some legal footnote. It's right there

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in plain English. Yet here we are having a Supreme

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Court justices confirmed that two means two. Justice Sonya Soda

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Mayer had to address the same question on the view,

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saying the Constitution is settled law no one has tried

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to challenge that, which is a polite way of saying,

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are you people serious? Right now, Trump has been teasing

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a third term run, and his company's website is literally

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selling Trump twenty twenty eight bait baseball caps with the

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slogan rewrite the rules, how about we release the Epstein

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files instead. Portions of today's program were made with the

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help of AI