Is Diet Mountain Dew racist? Well, no… but why would it be? That’s the head scratching question social media users, cultural analysts, and, uh, beverage trade journalists have been trying to answer this week after the Republican Vice Presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, invoked the idea during a stump speech on Monday. The strange moment even had a former GOP advisor calling it “cringe.”
Vance was speaking at his hometown high school in Middletown, Ohio when he suggested that Democrats “say it’s racist to do anything.” “I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday, and one today, and I’m sure they’re gonna call that racist too,” said the junior Senator from Ohio, then adding “It’s good.” The line was quickly met with confusion and derision online, where users on X (a.k.a. Twitter) – including some Democratic politicians – mocked the idea that anyone would consider the soft drink to be racist. Mostly, people took offense at his preference for the aspartame-packed diet version of PepsiCo’s citrus soda. Now, it’s obvious that this was meant to be a joke trying to ridicule the American left as being overly sensitive. Whether it was a good joke, well, we as objective journalists are not in a position to weigh in (though, conventional wisdom in comedy suggests if you have to spend this much energy explaining the punchline you might want to workshop it some more). However, the choice to shout out Diet Mountain Dew might have an ounce of logic behind it. As The Atlantic pointed out, Mountain Dew has a history of association with Appalachia and the hillbilly culture Vance claims to hail from. Long before it became the gamer drink of choice, the Dew (a name that doubles as old slang for moonshine) used to tout a hillbilly mascot promising the soda would “tickle yore innards” and as recently as 2015 the brand was still most popular in the region. So, perhaps Vance deserves some more credit for knowing his audience. More recently, Mountain Dew – and in particular Diet Mountain Dew – appeared to over-index with Republicans. A day after the speech, Republican researcher Will Feltus posted to X results from a 2023 NielsenIQ and Scarborough survey which found that although only 1.8% of Americans called Diet Mountain Dew their preferred soft drink of choice, Republicans rated 16 points higher than Democrats in choosing the drink at 46.1% right to 30.1% left – more than any other major soda brand. But does that make it racist? How about we all just quit with the name-calling, already? Meanwhile, Democrats had Fanta in their corner with a 32.1 point spread, so maybe that’s something for Kamala Harris to consider. While the soda wars clash with political campaigns, calm yourself down with this Lana Del Rey throwback. | 
