The Category 5 firestorm over Cracker Barrel isn’t merely about the rebranding of a restaurant.

It’s about the rebranding of America.

“The problem goes MUCH deeper than a logo,” writes anti-woke activist Robby Starbuck.

The Cracker Barrel store and logo redesigns getting all the attention, he maintains, are part of a comprehensive campaign to impose far-left sexual ideologies on workplaces, workers and company executives – all in concert with and under the watchful eye of the so-called Human Rights Campaign for LGBTQ+ rights.

According to Starbuck, Cracker Barrel over the past decade has, among other things:

• funded “all ages” gay pride events that include the smallest of children
• reportedly sponsored HRC events for 10 years, even bringing in an HRC representative to its Tennessee HQ to do a pronoun and transgenderism training
• worked with a group that helps illegal immigrants and opposes President Trump’s deportations
• sponsored the Out & Equal LGBTQ Workplace Advocate Conference and presented a workshop for a group that works to push sexual topics and pronouns into the workplace
• dispensed “Coming Out Day” pamphlets at headquarters that included creating “Safe Zones” at work, free from “heterosexist or cisgendered comments and actions”

“To put it mildly,” Starbuck writes, “Cracker Barrel has forgotten who their core customers are.”

President Trump encouraged the company to admit its mistake and get back in its customers good graces, in a post on his Truth Social social media platform.

“They got a Billion Dollars worth of free publicity if they play their cards right,” Trump wrote. “Very tricky to do, but a great opportunity. Have a major News Conference today. Make Cracker Barrel a WINNER again.”

Instead, the company wrote a half-hearted mea culpa that didn’t indicate it was changing course.

“Cracker Barrel coughed up a lame apology on social media over its controversial revamp — and got slammed by customers in response,” the New York Post noted.

The company paid a severe price for its pivot last week, losing $100 million in valuation – and perhaps a lot of customers.

“From a branding perspective, it’s basically a flop,” one branding expert told CBS News. “What they did wrong is, they went against their brand story, which was the old logo, that reflected the southern, whimsical atmosphere in the stores.”

That would be big-enough of a mistake. Think Bud Light.

Yet, the company’s rebrand likely goes far beyond what Starbuck suggests and marketers may realize.

Is this about our national identity?

In its store redesign, Cracker Barrel has even removed the nostalgic memorabilia on its walls that are suggestive of a slower, less complicated country life and the down-home comfort food that came with it.

“Cracker Barrel walls are decorated with various authentic American antiques, including old-fashioned rifles, deer heads, family portraits, and rural tools and artifacts like radios, farming equipment, vintage signs, and snowshoes,” Google AI notes.

“The decor is designed to evoke a feeling of southern nostalgia and a sense of a welcoming, imaginary country store.”

“According to the Wall Street Journal,” says one news report, “the new design strips out the rustic wood finishes, Americana memorabilia, and front porch feel …”

Why take all that down? Is it because this rebrand isn’t just about sexual or racial identity, but about national identity?

Isn’t the rebrand – which includes the elimination of the drawing of an old-timer relaxing by the barrel – really about eliminating the chain’s ode to old-fashioned Americana?

Is Cracker Barrel – or at least its woke operator – simply ashamed of its roots and its traditional American values? Is the company joining in with a longed-for leftist rebrand of America itself?

Sure appears that way – and it would seem to be a bizarre time to throw out relished relics of Americana now, as the country has already begun celebrating its 250th anniversary coming next July 4th.

Now is the time to do the exact opposite of what Cracker Barrel is doing: to get back in touch with Americana and all that comes with it.

Jumping on a dead woke horse

Cracker Barrel’s President and CEO Julie Masino – who “faces calls for her resignation over a disastrous rebrand,” as London’s Daily Mail puts it – apparently didn’t get the memo. Not only is wokeism on the wane, but patriotism is back. Big time.

After decades of relegating love of country to out-of-print history books, Americans are ready for the old-time kind of pride parade.

And because America is a unique nation, held together by ethics rather than ethnicity, it’s a matter of national security to consciously hand down knowledge and appreciation for America.

Americana, as Google AI frames it, includes “materials and themes characteristic of the United States and its culture, encompassing everything from music and literature to artifacts and folklore. In music, it’s a roots-oriented genre blending styles like folk, country, blues, and rock, often focusing on storytelling and authenticity. Culturally, Americana includes artifacts, scenery, and stories that are seen as distinctively American and may evoke nostalgia for American history and identity.”

It’s the flag, the bald eagle, Mount Rushmore, Statue of Liberty, Yorktown, Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg. It’s Will Rogers, Mark Twain, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Norman Rockwell. It’s the Old West and all its mythical casts and locations: Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Dodge City, Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill, Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid and Jesse James.

It’s cowboys and astronauts, fairs and picnics, constitutions and declarations, rights and responsibilities, hymns and anthems.

And so much of it has already been taken down off the wall and put in the attic or the trash bin – first by others, and now by a restaurant chain so many had depended on to preserve and protect its own particular slice of national character for so many years.

With our 250th celebration straight ahead, this is no time to be hauling Americana out to the curb.

It’s that vital preservation of our national identity – not just a sterile logo or a spiritless dining room – that Cracker Barrel is getting most wrong.