Budweiser, the all-American beer brand for barbecues and ball games, faced a grassroots backlash after it hired transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney to pretend he likes to drink Bud Light while pretending to be a biological woman.
For foisting Mulvaney on its customers, Anheuser-Busch watched sales of Bud Light plummet approximately 28% through April and May, according to an NBC News article that cites a beverage industry trade publication.
The company’s stock price has fallen about 18% or, $4 a share, since the first Bud Light commercials featuring Mulvaney aired in early April, according to sports website Outkick.
“What’s transpired is more than a boycott,” columnist Rich Lowry summarized in a New York Post article. “Bud Light has become a national joke.”
At the same time Bud Light was reeling from the backlash, the anti-woke culture warriors went looking for another scalp. They found it on the sales floor in LGBT-worshipping Target stores, where valuable floor space is being used to sell onesies for newborns and “tuckable” women’s swimsuits for Mulvaney-like male customers.
Even worse for Target’s public relations woes, it had partnered with a United Kingdom-based designer named Erik Carnell (pictured at right) who uses Satanic imagery in her artwork. The self-described “gay trans man” sells merchandise on her website with the occultic symbol Baphomet and a guillotine that is jokingly called a “Homophobe Headrest.”
Even though Carnell’s violent and occultic items were not stocked on Target’s shelves, the accusation that Target is “partnering with a Satanist” proved too much and it pulled Carnell’s products from its stores.
How much of a hit has Target taken? Its stock value has dropped from $160 a share to $138 a share, a drop of 14% and a $10 billion loss in valuation, a New York Post story reported this week.
“The goal is to make ‘pride’ toxic for brands,” Daily Wire host Matt Walsh, summarizing the culture fight, stated in a Twitter post on May 24. “If they decided to shove this garbage in our face, they should know that they’ll pay a price.”
Jon Schweppe, speaking for American Principles Project, tells AFN the other side in the culture war is having a hard time ignoring the stock hits to Anheuser-Busch and to Target.
“The market has not been crashing,” he says of Wall Street. “So I think that tells you that you are looking at a real impact from what we are doing, and so we just have to keep up the pressure.”
A ‘hostile environment’ at last
Homosexual activists are unhappily acknowledging that pressure, too, which comes after their non-profit lobbying groups have enjoyed access, accolades and financial donations from mega-sized corporations for decades. Their frustration was demonstrated in an alarm bell-ringing Associated Press story that said homosexual activists are being forced to take action in the midst of a “hostile environment” because their opponents oppose “LGBTQ rights.”
“We need a strategy on how to deal with corporations that are experiencing enormous pressure to throw LGBTQ people under the bus,” Rep. Scott Weiner, a homosexual activist and California assemblyman, told the AP.
Weiner, who has faced no real political opposition in far-left California, most recently introduced a bill that decriminalizes prostitution.
In the same AP story, the spokesman for a Boston-based homosexual rights group claimed the organization might increase security at its events and even remove the names of its staff members from its website for safety.
The national media has also come to the rescue of Carnell, the UK-based fan of Satan, who told CNN he understands why he is the victim of such unfair backlash. That's because people are “incredibly passionate with their hatred towards LGBT people," he said.
The Washington Post published a sympathetic story about the Satan-defending designer, too.
Meanwhile, Schweppe tells AFN the beginning of Pride Month might be the first real battle in a long time.
“I think you are going to see us get some wins in the culture,” he predicts, “for the first time in a long time."
“Our campaign is making progress. Let’s keep it going,” Walsh urged last week.
