This terrible new Gap ad is exactly what America doesn't need right now

Nerves are fried all over the country as Americans anxiously await the results of the presidential election. While so much remains up int the air, one thing I can tell you for certain is that no one wants to hear from brands right now.

We all knew it was going to be like this. For weeks, media and election officials warned us that vote counts would be not be finalized on Tuesday night or even Wednesday morning.  As we all white knuckle it through another uncertain day, the Gap, the aging clothing retailer that posted $932 million dollar loss in the first quarter of 2020, decided to tweet out a pointless, made-for-dunking-on twitter ad meant to celebrate unity or something other kind of garbage. I don’t know, take a look.

It’s a short ad that shows a blue and red hoodie being zipped up, with the text, “The one thing we know, is that together, we can move forward.” It ends with one blue and one red heart emoji. Haha get it, as if everything else about it was so subtle.

The tweet got dunked on so hard that it got deleted , but it just shows how badly Gap misjudged our current moment. If there’s one mood prevailing in the country right now, it is not unity. As a nation, we’ve lived through four unbelievably stressful years or discord and strife. As vote counts continue to come in, it’s clear that neither candidate is poised to win in a landslide, and the divisions in our country remain bone deep.

Frankly, it is a tough morning in America as people on both sides do some soul searching and are probably wondering, at their core, how someone else could vote for *that other guy.*

Right now, I feel like we’re hopelessly divided as a nation and more than anything else, it feels me with a deep and foreboding sadness. Rationally, I know how we got here, and yet I am still reluctant to accept it. What I am not in the mood for, and I don’t think anyone is, is the Gap or any other brand telling me that our deep, existential differences can be fixed by buying a cheap, ugly hoodie likely made by exploited overseas labor.

Please just sit this one out brands. No one needs to hear from you. No one cares that you are trying to be positive or uplifting or whatever. We are tense and both sides feel like the next few days will be a battle for the soul of our nation. Democracy is hanging by a damn thread, and a tense populace has been holding their breath for months. No one wants to buy your ugly hoodie right now or possibly ever. For once, we’re all agreed that what we’re dealing with can’t be fixed through mindless consumption. So please, keep your cheap sentiments to yourself.