Google's Ad Ban Benches an Austin Entrepreneur's Senate Impeachment Trial Playing Cards

Asher Garber's deck features the 52 Republican senators who voted to acquit Donald Trump of abuse of power charges in his first impeachment trial (Photo by Kevin Curtin)

It's said that in a poker game, only the cards don't lie. Funny then that a locally produced playing card deck has been blocked from the internet's largest advertising platform due to a ban intended to quell misleading information.

When exactly 52 senators voted to acquit Donald Trump on Article 1 of his (first) impeachment trial last February, Austin businessman Asher Garber became inspired to document the historic vote with a deck of cards. Later that year he released 2020 Senate Impeachment Trial Acquittal playing cards though his newly minted Banana Republicards business. Each card zeroes in on a senator, featuring a quality caricature by artist Dale Whistler, a quote from the impeachment proceedings, plus when they were elected, their state's population rank, a career-related factoid, and their estimated net worth.

Ted Cruz appears on the three of hearts, while his companion in a current Senate ethics investigation Josh Hawley graces the two of spades. Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, gets high card placement with the ace of spades.

Imagine being happy to see Mitch McConnell.

Garber says the sales of the cards have been significantly impacted by the Google ad platform's "sensitive event" bans, which since last fall have intermittently suspended advertisements related to the election, the inauguration, impeachment, and the right-wing insurrection of the Capitol building. The widespread ban targets political ads and does not make exceptions for merchandisers.

"The ban has completely stopped me from reaching out to people who read websites that speak in the language that these cards speak," says Garber, who is also an advertiser with The Austin Chronicle. "People still come to my website and buy my cards sporadically, but because I'm not advertising on Palmer Report or PoliticusUSA, I'm not getting as many people as I had been."

Garber says his Banana Republicards were first restricted from Google's ad system on Oct. 28 with several flags including "electioneering" and the puzzling charge of encouraging online gambling, which he says a rep later rescinded. When the ban was lifted on Dec. 10, a month of solid sales followed, including his website's three busiest days coming directly after the storming of the Capitol. But traffic was again squashed on Jan. 18 when his ads began being blocked anew.

The "Disapproved Ads" email that barred sellers receive from Google does not facilitate individualized communication with a platform manager regarding a product's restriction. Sellers are encouraged to "edit content to fix the issue," which automatically resubmits the ad for approval. In December, Google issued a statement to multiple news outlets explaining the ad bans: "To protect users, we regularly pause ads for a discrete period over unpredictable, 'sensitive' events when ads can be used to exploit the event or amplify misleading information."

The owner of former Red River music venue Room 710 believes that, as a nonpolitical entity selling a deck of cards featuring accurate and publicly available information, his product should not be included in bans meant to mitigate baseless conspiracies. To him, the restriction of Banana Republicards evidences a problematically sweeping approach to Google's ban on political merchandise.

"This isn't a QAnon T-shirt. This is supposed to be a sign of the times," Garber says of his card deck.

"Everything on the cards is factually accurate, and it's meant to be taken as a whole piece. These are the senators who voted to acquit Donald Trump. They all have a job in government."

While Trump's second impeachment trial, set to begin the week of Feb. 8, would naturally bolster sales of a card set based around the previous impeachment proceedings, Garber predicts they'll remain blocked from the ad platform that allows him to best reach his intended audience.

"It's too bad. I already have the perfect slogan," Garber says, borrowing an adage from baseball history: "'You can't tell the players without a scorecard.'"

A previous version of this story stated Asher Garber's ad was flagged for "election nearing"; this should have read "electioneering."