00:07:37.480There's no reason to notice this kind of thing unless right wingers just decide to freak out about it.
00:07:42.520So let's be clear before we move on about what this is, because part of what fueled the right wing reaction was misinformation around the situation.
00:11:18.660This is like what we talked about before we recorded of like how difficult it is to talk about this because it's so just one dimensionally bigoted, like the actual backlash.
00:11:28.300Like there's no laundered version of this argument.
00:12:25.920For nearly two months now, Bud Light and Budweiser sales have fallen relative to the previous year's sales.
00:12:32.280And the decline has mostly increased over time, now hovering around 25% for Bud Light in particular, which is a massive decrease, obviously.
00:12:43.260I don't think we really know why this boycott has been much more effective than the usual boycott.
00:12:49.900I would imagine that you can chalk it up to a couple of things. First of all, Bud Light is
00:12:55.540essentially a commodity. It is cheap swill, meaning it's very easily replaced by competitors
00:13:01.300like Miller and Coors. And in fact, some preliminary sales data seems to show that
00:13:06.900that's where the sales went, right? For the 25% decrease in Bud Light, there was a corresponding
00:13:12.220increase across the other two brands. Yeah, they're in the rack next to each other. You're
00:13:16.040like, fuck it. I've been hearing that Bud Light is woke. I'm just going to pick the other beer.1.00
00:13:19.140Right. Right. It's the easiest boycott in the world to stick with.
00:13:22.380And then also there was like a very intentional campaign by prominent right wingers to sustain the outrage with the conscious knowledge that the right is generally outnumbered, but they could get what they want in the market by sort of aggressively targeting individual companies.
00:13:41.100This is something that Matt Walsh has talked about for a while.
00:13:44.360They don't always admit that they are sort of in the minority, right?
00:13:47.380Because the whole silent majority concept has been part of their psyche for so long.
00:13:51.760But essentially conceding, look, we are not the majority in this country, but we are large
00:13:58.680enough that if we just coordinate and focus our effort, we can bully the marketplace.
00:14:05.340By being the more obnoxious side, by being the more organized side.
00:14:09.640Yeah, I highlighted that quote, too, where he said, like, we can't boycott every like woke company, but we can highlight one and make a big example out of them.
00:14:19.240Right. And they've essentially by zeroing in on this one company, every other consumer brand is looking at this being like, oh, fuck, we don't want to be next.0.96
00:14:26.420Right. Anheuser-Busch puts two marketing executives responsible for the promotion on leave. One of them is Alyssa Heinerscheid, who was hired, I think, in 2022 just to freshen up the brand.0.85
00:14:40.140Right-wingers locate a podcast interview with her from March where she said she was hired with a mandate to evolve the brand and that she wanted to bring an image of inclusivity to what she called a traditionally fratty and kind of out-of-touch brand.1.00
00:27:13.360according to the brand's social media post.
00:27:15.560At one point, Target sold three Abprolin items, a messenger bag saying we belong everywhere across trans flag colors, a tote bag with a message too queer for here beneath a UFO and a cure transphobia, not trans people sweatshirt.
00:29:57.860To them, it doesn't matter whether you are a trans guy named Eric creating a joke pin or like the witches in The Witch huddled nude around a campfire floating in the air through the power of Satan.0.58
00:30:12.500Like that is the same thing to them.0.73
00:30:14.360It's also very funny to me that they're pretending that they don't agree with the phrase Satan respects pronouns.
00:30:23.100The fact that Satan would be a pronoun guy kind of makes sense.
00:30:26.680And then like the the right wing media kicks into gear around this. So Tom Cotton tweets out a photo of the Satan respects pronouns pin with something along the lines of like Target is indoctrinating our youth, blah, blah, blah. And of course, this all gets like warped together with this idea that Target is actually selling the Satan respects pronouns pin. Right. Right. Right. To be honest, I would not give a shit if Target was selling that pin. But it's a very deliberate effort on the part of right wing media.
00:30:56.100It's also Target would not sell that pin.
00:31:05.040But the goal of this effort is to imply that all of this is part of a top-down effort by
00:31:12.680liberal elites to corrupt our children, to groom our children, that a pride display at
00:31:19.500Target is two degrees of separation away from pedophilia.0.81
00:31:23.520And you can also see the QAnonification of conservatism in this, too, where it's like they're kind of trying to imply that somehow by buying like a cute T-shirt for a kid, this is like too queer for here with a UFO on it, that somehow like, no, no, no, that's not just a cute T-shirt.0.93
00:31:39.840It's actually like low key Satanist.0.91
00:31:42.500They also do this extremely try hard thing where they try to link this merchandise to like glorifying violence.
00:31:50.620So later in the National Review post, they say the company, they're talking about this allegedly satanic company.
00:31:56.680The company sells clothing designs showing the phrases we bash back with a heart shaped mace in the trans flag colors, transphobe collector with a skull and homophobe headrest with skulls beside a pastel guillotine.
00:32:10.940and it's like they're obviously jokes the we bash back thing is like a very well-known slogan
00:32:16.820from people who used to go around neighborhoods looking for gay bashers and like protecting gay
00:32:23.000people they would like walk around with baseball bats and this is like an actual like thing of0.99
00:32:27.180like you're gonna gay bash us we're gonna fucking gay bash bash you so like that's just like a0.98
00:32:31.200throwback like actual thing also it's cool i know and it's also really cool but it's also very funny0.99
00:32:36.560to be when conservatives are like this glorifies a culture of violence it's a culture of self-defense0.98
00:32:41.700against you you fucking freaks exactly you guys are the ones glorifying fucking violence constantly1.00
00:32:46.760and like there's already been like a wave of death threats about this shit like who's glorifying1.00
00:32:52.140violence here look there are tons of like tongue-in-cheek death threats and threats of violence0.99
00:32:57.700and like lefty social media and if you look at right-wing social media it's not tongue-in-cheek
00:33:04.300you know i actually have like complaints about how lefties handle death threats and stuff because
00:33:11.720i do think it's funny to joke about like henry kissinger dying i feel like the most magical
00:33:17.560times on the internet in the last like five years were the weekend when pokemon go came out and the
00:33:23.680night that trump announced he had covid dude that night ding dong like ring the bells
00:33:29.880rejoicing. I think I once tweeted that that night on Twitter was like the closest we got to all like
00:33:37.240being in a stadium together doing the seven nation army chant. I remember texting my family
00:33:44.600the next day and my family are not a bunch of like irony poisoned lefties like me. They're
00:33:49.880just normal liberals. And I was like, did you hear the good news? And they were like,
00:33:53.420we heard the great news. Like Xanadu, it's possible. We can't have a better world.
00:33:59.160Everyone was vibing, dude. I don't know. I I'm not someone who defends the use of like jokes about violence as anything other than catharsis, which I think is what it is and and why people use it.
00:34:13.920And also, like, whatever, people are going to joke around about this kind of stuff.
00:34:17.760I have no problem, like, making some jokes and, like, tittering when other people joke about, like, Donald Trump dying of COVID.
00:34:24.120But also, like, if somebody were to assassinate a political leader on the right, I would also be able to be like, oh, I don't know that this is, like, a great direction.
00:36:25.700And there's all these videos, including one from the Heritage Foundation, another sort of quote unquote respectable conservative institution where people go in and there's very sort of deliberate editing that goes on to make it look like these little tags on the swimsuits are on the kids' swimsuits.
00:37:23.020Like, that's that's how I understood those pills, even though it's just like, you know, vitamin C and like riboflavin or whatever.
00:37:29.920And I feel like it's telling that they never really describe like the mechanism by which this is harmful to kids.
00:37:36.740It's like a little bit of extra cloth in the crotch.0.60
00:37:39.980And like, I think that they think that this will like turn your kid trans if they wear this swimsuit.
00:37:48.700Like, I don't actually know what they're mad about.
00:37:52.000There's a weird part of the conservative, like anti-trans, anti-LGBT movement that is like basically predicated around like loose associations in your mind between children and sexuality and genitalia.
00:39:00.240that's that's like conservative target is just like little shirts for toddler boys that are like1.00
00:39:08.260yeah i like pussy penetrative sex with a vagina but then okay i don't know if you saw this with1.00
00:39:12.940the bud light stuff but there's a fascinating wave in conservative media so the early reports0.99
00:39:19.980are just like target is selling pride merch and then around the first one i found was may 23rd
00:39:25.920in Fox, the framing is like pretending to be meta. It'll be like Target faces backlash over
00:39:31.880pride collection. And it's like, right, you guys did the backlash. Like the Daily Wire,
00:39:37.320which is the earliest article that I could find being like, look at what's in their pride
00:39:40.760collection, then has an article two weeks later that is like Target really riled up conservatives
00:39:46.000with its pride collection. It's you. You did that. And now you're reporting on the thing that you did.
00:39:51.100Right. So this Fox News article from May 23rd, it's something we saw in the GameStop bonus episode that we did where it's all about how Target is panicking.
00:40:00.540Yeah. So the headline is Target holds emergency meeting over LGBTQ merchandise in some stores to avoid Bud Light's situation.
00:40:10.300And like they have some sort of insider who works at Target who says like the executives are really concerned about this backlash.
00:40:16.600And like they had a meeting to discuss their response.
00:40:20.080And like, that's the whole story. It's like, yeah, Target has noticed this. Yeah. And it's like trying to come up with a response to this, which like, yes, you know, it's a consumer facing company. It's facing consumer backlash. Like people are going to get on the phone and be like, what should we do about this?
00:40:34.660One of the things that neutral coverage about this stuff does, especially in the business media context, is sort of imply, if not outright state that they have like made a business misstep without explaining what they mean, which is like, yeah, marketing things to gay people is a business mistake now.0.96
00:40:57.760Right. Yeah. Partnering with a trans person is a business mistake. They can't say that shit out loud, but you can sort of gesture to the situation. Yeah. And be like, yeah, so obviously Target has made some sort of error here because how else can business media process corporate controversy? How else can business media process a sales decline? Right. Something must have gone wrong.0.75
00:41:19.340It's a way of talking about this just like, again, straightforwardly bigoted and deranged pushback as like somehow you're making an objective statement.
00:41:27.040You're like, well, you know, there's this backlash going on.
00:41:29.540We're not going to say whether it has any merit or not.
00:41:31.840But of course, they throw in these little things that are like very obviously meant to like rile up the reader.
00:41:38.660So the Fox News article, it's sort of giving an overview of like, what's this controversy all about?
00:41:43.520And it says, Target Pride merchandise includes female-style swimsuits that can be used to tuck male genitalia.
00:41:50.880Some products are also labeled as thoughtfully fit on multiple body types and gender expressions.
00:41:56.460Pride merchandise also includes onesies and rompers for newborn babies.
00:42:00.560A variety of adult clothing with slogans such as super queer, party supplies, home decor, multiple books, and a grow-at-your-own-pace saucer platter.
00:45:43.620about their efforts to they're trying to do better actually they're unfairly maligned you're wrong
00:45:49.900about nike i'm going back to my roots they're fine the nike is good episode of you're wrong
00:45:56.640about sarah get on it but really i mean like a lot of this is internal marketing and external
00:46:02.200marketing this is the thing is that like there are three reactions to like corporate dei if you're
00:46:08.960an employee. One is like the weird true believer who mistakenly thinks that the company is actually
00:46:16.340trying to do good in this world. Yeah. Two is the cynic who is like, oh, what a bunch of fucking
00:46:22.940bullshit. Whether or not the cynic believes it, they realize that the company does not. And so1.00
00:46:28.660it doesn't really matter. And then three is the right wing nutjob who is losing their mind because
00:46:35.700they believe that it's authentic and genuine and ironically has sort of aligned themselves0.93
00:46:42.220with the person in category one right the suckers who believe that it's real are on like opposite
00:46:49.480sides of the political spectrum to some degree and then you have like the sort of cynical mass0.97
00:46:55.600of people across the spectrum who are just like obviously this is bullshit yeah and therefore i0.78
00:47:00.100roll my eyes yeah yeah whether or not the ultimate message of it is something you believe in so i0.92
00:47:05.020I mean, nearly everyone I have worked with my entire life and been friends with has been roughly politically aligned with me to some degree, at least on like things like diversity, sexual harassment, etc.
00:47:19.880And yet almost all of them would roll their eyes at like corporate sexual harassment training because everyone knows that it comes from a place of inauthenticity.
00:51:58.980Than anything we've done with the TSA.
00:52:01.320Seriously. So we're seeing these corporations sort of try to reckon with a world where you can't abandon LGBT people and allies because they have a lot of support and make up the majority of the country. But you also have to cater to this loud, violent, aggressive minority. And I think the actual lesson for companies is cross your fingers and hope you don't get selected.
00:52:29.960And you I don't know if you saw this in your research, Peter, but they've already moved on to Kohl's, which also apparently has pride displays.0.83
00:52:36.700They're going after the North Face because they did an Instagram partnership, something, something with a drag queen named Patagonia, which is pretty good.
00:52:46.380It's funny to do a partnership with like one of your competitor company name.
00:52:49.980Maybe they thought they were like co-opting.
00:52:51.720Yeah, we will take away Patagonia's greatest drag queen ally.
00:52:55.660But then, you know, I mean, earlier this year we had the Hershey's thing.
00:52:58.220hershey's did a marketing campaign that included some trans people and conservatives meltdown
00:53:03.300there was lego they went after lego yeah yeah because they were gonna have like
00:53:07.100black lego figures and like people with disabilities that's another one where you're0.64
00:53:12.280like you guys it's really revealing of the whole fucking project even though all legos are gender0.98
00:53:17.680fluid there's no genitals pop a little wig on that guy and that's a gal now well also what's0.99
00:53:24.040what's interesting to this people have been talking a lot in the last couple years about
00:53:27.240like moving the Overton window, right?
00:53:29.140If you say like the leftmost position,
00:53:55.780because there's always the question like,
00:53:56.860well do we want mainstream acceptance or do we want to change the mainstream yeah but then
00:54:00.740losing mainstream acceptance feels really bad like it feels bad like this is one of the first
00:54:07.460episodes i've researched for the show where like i really did not feel good reading about this0.93
00:54:10.920target stuff yeah i felt the same way it's like target but also like i want the dumb like united0.97
00:54:16.860airlines float at pride like not because i think united airlines gives a shit but like it just0.99
00:54:21.740means that it's not controversial to support gay people. It feels like a metric of progress0.99
00:54:26.860more than a good in and of itself. Yeah, exactly. In a vacuum, we shouldn't care about these empty
00:54:32.280gestures at all, but we're not in a vacuum. Yeah. Right. This is the product of an ascendant
00:54:37.820reactionary movement that is increasingly hateful, increasingly aggressive, increasingly violent.
00:54:43.540And the corporations backing down so quickly in some of these cases is a reminder that these
00:54:49.060institutions that have pretended to stand with the LGBT community for a decade now will very
00:54:55.740readily side with the fascists when the chips are down easily. I have this other maybe half0.63
00:55:00.820baked thought, but I think that what's interesting about the conservative tactic here is that they
00:55:06.000get the causation backwards. Right. Corporate pride is the aesthetic output of a society that
00:55:13.360is more broadly accepting of LGBT people, right? Conservatives lost the fight over broad social
00:55:20.400tolerance of LGBT people, or at least LGB people. And now they're attacking the aesthetic outgrowths
00:55:27.880of that social tolerance. I think in general, people on the right are sort of blind to the
00:55:33.240difference between aesthetics and material politics because their politics are so aesthetic.
00:55:37.960They don't want anything other than to feel like they are firmly atop the social hierarchy.
00:55:44.800I think it was Walter Benjamin who said that fascism is the aestheticization of politics, right?
00:55:51.440The fascist public is being given a channel to express their frustrations without any material political benefit accruing to themselves.
00:56:00.760Right. So for LGBT people, it's a material fight because you can't separate the Bud Light drama, the target drama from anti-trans bills in state legislatures, for example.
00:56:12.680Yeah. Yeah. But for conservatives, it's purely aesthetic. Right. They have nothing material to gain here. It's about the validation of their social status.
00:56:20.240It's also, to me, there's also like a huge media component of this too, that in the 2010s after Obergefell, we had a lot of takes that are like, okay, gay marriage is kind of off the table. Conservatives have kind of dropped gay marriage, anti-gay stuff as a fight. Like you'd even see essays in like the National Review and various other conservative publications about like, well, you know, the gay thing. Turns out it's actually really not that big of a deal, right?
00:56:44.700But then the minute the far right becomes emboldened to go after gay people, the center right immediately capitulates and immediately starts laundering this into, well, there's actually some concerns, right?
00:56:59.180So the Media Matters for America had a piece about how Jonah Goldberg went on CNN when all this stuff was happening and being like, well, you know, there's some real concerns about like trans youth and like surgical procedures.0.99
00:57:10.940and it's like these are people that are saying that the products are satanic these are fucking0.90
00:57:15.760psychos and you're going on and be like well wait a minute what if the psychos have a point right i0.99
00:57:20.820also think there's a big thing with kind of transphobia itself too that like the jk rowling
00:57:24.640wing of like the quote-unquote gender critical movement their argument is always like well we're
00:57:30.020not an anti-trans movement we're not transphobes right we just have reasonable concerns about like
00:57:34.900same-sex spaces and reasonable concerns about kids and then this stuff happens that again
00:57:40.420straightforward bigotry and they're not pushing back. No one on their side is like, hey, I am
00:57:46.220actually concerned about the surgical procedures, but these people are fucking weirdos. They're not0.99
00:57:49.940doing that, which should call into question everything else they are saying about their
00:57:55.500alleged reasonable concerns about like, oh, trans kids and the surgical procedures. It's become
00:58:01.400very obvious that they are part of, you know, you can never say what anybody's individual
00:58:06.940motivations are. But they are in league with open right wing bigots who are aiming to turn back
00:58:13.640both trans rights and LGBT rights and really, you know, broader progressive gains more generally.
00:58:18.800Right. They are in league with these people. They're just like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It turns
00:58:22.900out, you know, maybe there's some fascists like doing death threats on target. But like, I don't
00:58:27.220know why we should ever like give that any attention. Anyway, here's a whole eight episode
00:58:31.040podcast series about the fucking witch trials of J.K. Rowling. Right. Right. And about how like0.99
00:58:36.560trans people were mean to her on the internet it's like well is anyone mean on the internet0.99
00:58:40.240right now right your dedication to fucking civility on the internet anyone else you want0.89
00:58:44.260to aim that ire at no okay yeah i mean it's a from the right it's never a real demand for0.98
00:58:49.920civility it's a demand for complacency that's what they actually want can we end with a quiz
00:58:55.220peter i'm gonna send you a quote and you have to guess where it's from a lot of pressure after i0.64
00:59:02.160fucking knock that math stuff out of the park a couple episodes again.0.72
00:59:06.200I know. It's a problem. You peaked too early.0.99