American consumers, with more than $21 trillion in disposable income, reached the end of their patience with the insufferable “Pride” parade, and corporate America is waking up to the fact.
Trafalgar Group surveyed 1,088 likely general-election voters in early June (just as “Pride Month” was lifting off) and asked, “With the public backlash against companies like Bud Light and Target, do you believe businesses should continue to promote political themes during pride month, or should businesses seek to be neutral on cultural issues?” More than eight out of ten said American businesses should stick to their business and stay out of promoting “cultural issues.”
Near the end of the month, Bloomberg reported on the results of a survey of more than 900 of those American companies, discovering that the term “Pride Month” in their official regulatory filings, company presentations, and earnings calls transcripts had dropped an astonishing 40 percent from a year earlier.
As Bloomberg noted, “Corporate America is getting quieter on the issue.… LGBTQ-related mentions fell in each of the past three quarters.”
Part of the decline (or rather, the increase in awareness of how offensive the perversity push is to the average American) has come from boycotts. Trafalgar asked its respondents, “Have you personally boycotted a company that took a public stance on a cultural or political issue you disagree with?” A remarkable four out of ten of them said, “Yes, I boycotted a company for taking progressive or woke public stances.”
When pressed for an apology for so offending its customers by his company using a transgender to promote the country’s best-selling beer, Bud Light, that company’s CEO, Brendan Whitworth, demurred. He called the boycott — which has reduced his company’s retail sales by 25 to 30 percent — “challenging”:
It’s been a challenging few weeks. I think the conversation surrounding Bud Light has moved away from beer, and the conversation has become divisive. And Bud Light really doesn’t belong there. Bud Light should be all about bringing people together. And there’s an impact on the business, and I think that’s publicly covered on Bud Light specifically.
He talked around the issue without confronting it directly:
There’s a big social conversation taking place right now, and big brands are right in the middle of it and it’s not just our industry or Bud Light. It’s happening in retail, happening in fast food.
And so for us what we need to understand is — deeply understand and appreciate — is the consumer and what they want, what they care about and what they expect from big brands.
Translation: We really don’t care. We’re in it to win it. It may cost us market share in the short run. But American beer drinkers have short memories. We’ve been promoting this radical change in the American culture for years, and we’re not going to let this temporary pushback derail our efforts.
Ben Carson, the highly regarded retired neurosurgeon and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Trump, has the answer to this insidious and determined march to perversion:
The only people who can change that [agenda] is We the People …
We have to put our foot down and say, this is America. This is where we are free to live the way that we want to, to worship the way we want to, to say what we want to say.
And we’re not going to stand for government or corporate America to try to dictate [what we think and believe].
The American people, with their $21 trillion in disposable income, are vastly able to resist the push and successfully teach people like Whitworth that they aren’t buying what they’re trying to sell.
Related article:
Bud Light’s Promotion of LGBT Agenda Is Effort to Change the Culture
