“Terrified Of A Bud Light Situation”: Target Pulls Pride Month Products In Certain Stores Amid Boycott Calls

OPINION:  This article contains commentary which may reflect the author’s opinion

Target CEO Brian Cornell stated that “woke” capitalism is “great” for their company and “the right thing for society,” the business has been frantically trying to avoid an untenable “Bud Light moment” by requiring some stores to get rid of LGBTQ Pride merchandise as boycott calls from customers grow.

According to a Target insider, locations in the South and rural America are eliminating contentious LGBT-themed merchandise before June Pride month to prevent further outrage. Products ranged from gender-neutral coffee cups to “tuck-friendly” bikinis for transgender persons. According to the insider, the rationale for the sudden change is “to avoid the kind of backlash Bud Light has received in recent weeks.”

The insider claimed that last Friday, a “emergency” conference call was made with store managers and senior district directors to destroy Pride sections on retail floors in order to avoid a sales-slamming catastrophe similar to the 24% hit Bud Light has suffered.

“We were given 36 hours, told to take all of our Pride stuff, the entire section, and move it into a section that’s a third the size. From the front of the store to the back of the store, you can’t have anything on mannequins and no large signage,” the source stated.

The employee, who has spent more than 20 years at the company, claimed that executives are “terrified of a Bud Light situation” as social media calls for a boycott grow.

According to a Target representative, the floor modifications were made in response to “threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and wellbeing” as a result of the Pride goods’ introduction. There are no reports of violence towards Target personnel or storefronts on social media and no video proof has been found.

Major media agencies, as they frequently do, distorted Target’s nebulous reference to employees’ “sense of safety and well-being” into headlines alluding to “threats to employees.”

Erik, founder and designer for Abprallen UK and Target Pride collection – Satanic line

Despite Target’s lack of specificity, the designs by London-based Abprallen, which “designs and sells occult- and satanic-themed LGBTQ clothing and accessories,” according to Associated Press, are undoubtedly among those that are being taken down. Target.com currently redirects users to a “product not available” page when they search for Abprallen’s “Cure Transphobia Not Trans People” shirt design.

Below are some of the products from Abprallen.

Fox confirmed that Pride sections have been moved from the front to the back of some stores in South Carolina, Arkansas, and Georgia.

And this is all happening after Cornell, the CEO of Target, spoke last Wednesday about embracing woke capitalism. Such a significant policy change probably indicates the retailer is afraid of a “Bud Light moment” or has already noticed sales trends that indicate a boycott.

“Corporations have freedom of speech under the First Amendment but have to understand if their political ideologies don’t align with customers, then the people also have freedom of speech to voice their opinion. That’s why corporations should probably stay out of identity politics or risk pissing off both sides, because what Target did by moving pride products to the back and scaling down the section will likely spark outrage in the trans community,” Zero Hedge noted.

Did companies learn anything from Bud Light, or are they oblivious that their woke marketing is corporate suicide, as these ideals and beliefs don’t resonate with most consumers?

Early in May the makers of Bud Light came under fire from Donald Trump for catering to “the radical Left” after using a notorious transgender influencer to market the well-known beverage.

The former president criticized the beer’s parent firm, Anheuser-Busch, for hiring male Dylan Mulvaney after he gained notoriety for capturing his gender change on TikTok.

Trump complimented a conservative author in a post on his Truth Social platform. The author recently dubbed the ad campaign “a woke, clueless, incredibly dumb miscalculation.”

‘It’s time to beat the Radical Left at their own game. Money does talk—Anheuser-Busch now understands that. Great new Book by Wayne Allyn Root. Buy your copy today!’ Trump declared.

‘The Great Patriot Protest & Boycott Book’ was written by Root two years ago, and he has long been a devoted admirer of the 45th president of the United States.

Root advocates that consumers should “defund leftist woke companies.”

‘In short, conservatives and patriots must wield the power of the purse. Money talks. We have the power to change the direction of this country by changing the direction of corporate policy,’ Root proclaimed.

When Mulvaney received a commemorative can featuring her visage to honor her “365 days of being a girl,” the Bud Light debate was set off.

Mulvaney revealed her intentions to transition last year, and in December 2022, she underwent invasive facial feminization surgery.

In the horrifying procedure, a patient’s face’s bones are cut out and sanded down in an effort to soften male characteristics.

Conservatives and normal sane people, however, were incensed by the PR gimmick and charged the company with interfering in one of the most contentious culture war issues.

Sales of the beer instantly fell by more than one-fifth, raising concerns that the boycott would have a permanent negative impact.

Anheuser-Busch lost $6 billion in market value in just six days as a result of the video.

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