These ads appeared roughly 15 years ago, and when you’ve done your (excessive, sorry [kind of]) homework for Tuesday, you’ll recognize the first voice. As we consider Whitman’s America, and circa 2010 America, and 2026 America, I invite you to analyze these videos. Is this a portrait of America WW would have recognized? embraced? rejected? Why? Would it matter to Whitman, or does it matter to you, that the poetry, and the Whitmanish slogan, were mobilized to sell jeans (by a massive company worth billions, founded by a German Jewish immigrant that began making jeans for working men during Whitman’s lifetime)? For that matter, is this an America YOU recognize? If the ads are trying to sell both jeans AND a vision of America, what do you make of that vision?