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The 'Anti-Woke' Economy: Right-Wing Boycotters, Wokester Jokesters, Hucksters and Grifters [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-06-16
Is it Bud Light, Target or Chick-fil-A? Having trouble deciding what to boycott today? Getting flummoxed trying to keep up with which companies are supporting “woke” and pro-LGBTQ initiatives? Is your “anti-woke” scorecard starting to look like a 15-extra inning baseball game? Are you desperately seeking safe spaces to shop? Are you looking for a handy way to find out which company or product to boycott?
Well, I’ve got some good news for you.
According to Axios’ Hans Nichols, a Washington, D. C.-based conservative group called Consumers' Research (
https://consumersresearch.org/) — which isn't affiliated with Consumer Reports — “is offering a new service that texts ‘Woke Alerts’ straight to the phones of grocery shoppers who want to know which brands are accused of taking political positions that are offensive to the right.”
Despite the Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) encompassed by “anti-woke” boycotts, it appears that, according to two Yale University scholars, “there is little financial threat to mainstream business posed by the anti-woke economy.”
[A brief reminder: What is woke? According to Merriam Webster, it means being “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues, (especially issues of racial and social justice).”]
According to the “Woke Alert” page at the Consumers’ Research website, “Many corporations are putting progressive activists and their dangerous agendas ahead of customers. They’ll only succeed if we look the other way.”
Nichols recently reported that, “Consumers' Research is launching a six-figure digital ad campaign this week to drive people to sign up for its new service.”
According to the Consumers’ Research website – which accepts donations for its work -- current boycotts include such companies as Disney, Bank of America, NASCAR, Chipotle, Kohl’s, and GM. Singled out for being especially egregious are any companies offering any merchandise acknowledging Pride.
These companies are accused of funneling millions of dollars to the Trevor Project an organization that Consumer’s Research claims “hosts a private chat room in which adults prey on vulnerable children. The group calls itself a resource for at-risk LGBTQ youth, but closer examination shows it provides a way for groomers and predators to communicate directly with children without their parents’ knowledge or consent (scroll to the bottom to learn more).”
Boycotts and Anti-Woke/Anti-Trans Entrepreneurs
Like almost everything else in the right-wing outrage-osphere there is money to be made being anti-woke and anti-trans.
A few weeks back we wrote about conservative influencer Seth Weathers creation of “Ultra Right” beer to counterBudweiser’s “woke mind virus” (
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/26/2171522/-Conservative-Influencer-Seth-Weathers-Ultra-Right-Beer-counters-Budweiser-s-Woke-Mind-Virus).
Consumers’ Research also singles out ESG investments. According to its website, “ESGstands for Environmental,Social, Governance and is used as an investment strategy to ‘encourage’ organizations to ‘act responsibly.’ ESG works by analyzing organizations across three criteria — their environmental footprint, their stance on social issues, and internal corporate governance. However, political activists use ESG as a way to drive a progressive agenda and ideological allies in the business community help push this agenda through economic coercion and ignoring democratic processes.”
One mobile Consumer Research billboard features the likenesses of Tim Buckley (Vanguard), Larry Fink (BlackRock), and Ron O’Hanley (State Street) with banner headline reading: “What does ESGreally stand for—Elitists, Socialists & Grifters.” Other billboards claim ESGstands for “Enabling Slave labor & Genocide.” Still another has ESG standing for “ESGstands for Environmental,Social, Governance and is used as an investment strategy to “encourage” organizations to “act responsibly.”
Vox’s Emily Stewart recently reported that, that “ Boycotting companies that don’t align with your politics is exhausting, which is why most people don’t, at least not for a sustained amount of time. It’s hard enough to exist in the world without worrying whether every purchase you make matches up with your personal views and values. But in recent months, the push for conservative consumers to vote with their dollars — or, rather, downvote by withholding their dollars — has been rampant” (
https://www.vox.com/money/23755227/target-bud-light-pride-conservative-boycott-anti-woke-lgbt).
“The number of boycotts is vast, and we’re talking about inconveniencing people at a level that doesn’t make any sense,” Maurice Schweitzer, a Wharton professor who focuses on behavioral decision research, emotion, and negotiations, told Stewart.
Stewart noted that “there is money to be made on being anti-woke, or some people believe there is.”
“There are a lot of companies that are making products that are geared toward conservative consumers. It’s becoming a whole market,” said Howard Polskin, president and chief curator at TheRighting, a website that aggregates stories from right-wing media. “Now, how big is that? I have no idea. Is this a fad, or is this a business? That’s the question.”
According to Fortune’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian, “grandstanding political ideologues are using opportunistic attacks on iconic U.S. enterprises to showcase their own nascent anti-ESG businesses, and reportedly build a ‘parallel economy’ catering to conservative constituencies. But far from flourishing, an objective review of the facts suggests these anti-wokester jokesters are financially foundering” (
https://fortune.com/2023/06/05/alt-right-economy-is-failing-real-performance-of-anti-woke-entrepreneurs-business-politics-sonnenfeld/).
Sonnenfeld, the Lester Crown Professor in Management Practice and Senior Associate Dean at Yale School of Management, and Tian, the director of research at the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, conclude: “Clearly, despite all the hype and drama, there is little financial threat to mainstream business posed by the anti-woke economy. It’s not a genuine parallel economy–these are scattered cases of ideological grifters and struggling entrepreneurs. Their real talent seems to lie in fast-talking media platforms into giving them an undeserved platform to unfairly target iconic pillars of U.S. enterprise. But as these anti-wokester jokesters struggle to gain financial traction, the numbers will continue to disprove their claims.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/16/2175766/-The-Anti-Woke-Economy-Right-Wing-Boycotters-Wokester-Jokesters-Hucksters-and-Grifters
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