GOP Tries To Use The Legend Of Zelda For Propaganda, Fails In Spectacular Fashion

Politicians have had a long history of trying to appeal to young voters by using pop-culture references in a variety of platforms. The Republican Party recently tried to do this by comparing The Legend of Zelda property to the US tax code. Unfortunately, the party of old people and conservatives got a few details wrong, which forced them to backpedal hard on the pandering.

The gaffe happened when the GOP posted a blog with the title "What Do The Legend of Zelda and the American Tax Code Have In Common?", Ars Technica reports. In the post, Republicans wrote that the first installment in the video game franchise was released in 1986, a year after Nintendo was supposedly established, which they claimed was in 1985.

The GOP then tried to tie this tidbit in with the last time the American Tax Code was reformed, which happened in the same year. Unfortunately for whoever wrote the article, they made a huge blunder.

“The Legend of Zelda series is Nintendo’s best-selling video game franchise enjoyed by more than two generations of gamers. The action-adventure game was released in 1986, only one year after Nintendo’s founding in 1985,” the post, which has since been deleted read.

And you know what else was released in 1986? Yeah, you do. The last major reform to the American tax code was signed into law in 1986.”

For point of fact, Nintendo has actually been around since 1889. That’s when the company was still selling gaming cards. Even if the company meant Nintendo of America, they would still be wrong since the US branch was established in 1980.

It took an hour before the post was taken down, presumably because of all the “Um, actually…” comments and posts that the article got blasted with by citizens of the internet geekdom. A revised version was then put up with the correction.

On that note, this whole debacle has overshadowed the original intent behind the post, which was to shine a light on the fact that it has been decades since the tax code has been revised. The writer simply tried to make the article more interesting be appealing to the younger demographic using a reference that they could relate to.