In the wake of the Bud Light/Dylan Mulvaney controversy, one would think that the major corporations of America were reconsidering their willingness to engage in social politics.
Well, Target apparently didn’t get the message.
They are now.
After having been subject to the understandable ire of parents’ groups and conservative activists, Target is removing some of its “Pride Month” displays and apparel.
The company is now being attacked from the Left. LGBTQI+ activists lament that the major corporation—a staple of Middle-Class American consumption—is reneging on their support. At the very least, the company is hiding its support by moving the displays in less prominent parts of the store.
Although, it should be noted that these moves are only happening in more rural, Red States.
In a weak attempt to deflect from their bad judgment, the corporation is defending its decision to reduce the primacy of the displays in their stores by claiming that the company is moving the displays to protect their store employees.
According to Target, threats have been lobbed by Right-wing activists against store workers. To avoid unwanted confrontations with what they insinuate are bigots, the store is saying that they’ve no choice but to comply.
It’s Not a Handful of “Bigots”, Target, It’s the American People
This is a strange turn, of course.
Why would the company be so concerned about what it intimates is a fringe, racist group of people? Wouldn’t they want to be on the “right side of history”? The fact of the matter is that the negative reaction to Target’s flagrant support for LGBTQI+ during “Pride Month” (which normally goeth before the fall) is upsetting more than just your run-of-the-mill homophobe.
Context, as with everything, matters.
This isn’t just a matter of some colorful rainbows being raised in the front of the store commemorating Pride Month. Pride-friendly products that were being prominently featured along with those Pride flags. And these products were not just intended for adults. The children were also included in Target’s new push to take the LGBTQI+ fixation out of the fringe and into the mainstream.
You see, Target was pushing apparel supporting LGBTQI+ to small children. There were even “tuck-friendly” bathing suits being sold at Target (while not directly for children, they were lumped with products for children, meaning that they were intended to be seen by children).
This is, of course, part of the radical Left’s fixation on “gender affirmation” care.
Now, Corporate America is joining in with “gender affirming” apparel. Even if mom and dad refuse to purchase the apparel, the prominently displayed, colorful flags and stylish new apparel would be enough to reprogram the impressionable youth into thinking that physical gender reversals were entirely normal behavior.
It’s like when cigarette companies used to place their products at the eye levels of children in convenient stores and have them in colorful packaging. This was done to entice and appeal to the next generation, ensuring that the cigarette companies would have a new stock of customers (because they knew that their products would kill the current set of smokers).
When Big Tobacco did dishonorable actions such as this, they were rightly pursued by a vengeful Left for being predatory. But if a major corporation, like Target, makes the same move with young children’s products in the name of LGBTQI+, they are defended vigorously by the same Left that correctly attacked Big Tobacco.
The brightly colored LGBTQI+ clothing that Target was selling was adorned with colorful slogans emblazoned upon them like, “Just Be You,” or “Trans People Will Always Exist!”
Target Isn’t the First (and It Won’t Be the Last)
Target is but the most recent in a long line of mega-corporations that have moved into the Far Left and been made to pay for it. Walt Disney Corporation has lost much money in their ongoing fight with Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis (R), even as they engage in a massive legal battle with the Florida government.
As noted above, Bud Light has endured plummeting sales and likely severe brand damage that will last years after promoting the extremist trans ideology of Dylan Mulvaney.
Now, Target has fallen prey to the Left.
For all the caterwauling from the Left about how Target has caved to a minority of vicious Right-wing hatemongers, it’s telling that Target is trying to blunt the wrath of the Left by using their employees as an excuse for abandoning the Left.
It begs the question as to why these companies, whose customer bases are mostly Middle-and-Working-Class folks who have little interest in pushing the LGBTQI+ agenda on their young children.
Could it be because the Left has an entire ecosystem of professional activists whose only job is to bully these corporations into embracing their radical social policies in an effort to force Middle America into accepting ideas and products that they don’t want or need?
I think so.
What the Left doesn’t understand (largely because so many of them are childless) is that adult, Middle-Class Americans will tolerate a lot—far more than one would think they would tolerate.
They won’t, however, countenance perceived threats to their children. The products and ideology that the LGBTQI+ are pushing not just on America overall, but specifically on young children, is militating parents in Middle America against the LGBTQI+ community.
This isn’t just a handful of supposed bigots forcing these corporations to abandon their bizarre Woke ideology. If they were so few in number, these mega corporations wouldn’t care.
Most of America opposes the radical Leftist LGBTQI+ agenda for our children. And most of America is fighting back to protect their little ones.
That’s why Bud Light is collapsing. It’s why Disney is having to fight in the shadows, rather than openly defy DeSantis’ policies on transgender issues. Lastly, it explains why Target is ultimately folding on this issue.
They know that there’s enough of their customers opposed to these products being marketed to their children that their bottom line will be harmed.
The Right Uses People Power
That’s the key.
The Left learned long ago, such as when they got the major advertisers of the late conservative shock jock, Rush Limbaugh, to permanently drop his show after controversial comments he had made mocking the then-Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke in 2012.
That move did untold amounts of damage to Limbaugh, despite the fact that his listeners outnumbered those upset with his commentary. But the Left-wing activists manufactured opposition to Limbaugh and convinced enough of the advertisers that Limbaugh was too toxic. The Left went after Limbaugh’s pocketbook.
Now, the Right is doing the same.
The only difference is that, on the matter of LGBTQI+ ideology being pushed to America’s kids, the Right has the backing of most Americans. Target fundamentally knows this, which is why they’re backing down. The will of the American people is crushing a mega corporation and forcing it to comply with what most Americans want.
It’s a beautiful thing to see.
Hopefully, the Right replicates this success across-the-board. Because this won’t be the last time the radical Left tries to impose its twisted values on our children, using some of our favorite products to do so.
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A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
