According to Javier David of Axios, the anti-woke backlash against major American corporations has already taken a financial toll of at least $28 billion, and more may be on the way.
As evidenced by informal consumer boycotts of Anheuser-Busch, Kohl’s, and Target for their open embrace of LGBTQ ideology, a significant sector of the American public is fed up with woke ideology and its increasingly strident insistence on being the focus of national attention. As David put it, corporate America, which increasingly embraces woke ideology within its own walls, “is finding itself trapped between society’s progressive impulses, and the conservative backlash.”
Translation: Most corporate leaders, woke enthusiasts themselves, are now having to choose between appeasing their inner ideologue — and vociferous woke minions — and actually making a profit.
Both Target and Kohl’s have lost a significant percentage of market capitalization after popular backlash to their decisions to sell LGBTQ-themed clothing for children, while Bud Light’s choice of a transgender spokesperson made the once-storied beer almost unsellable. Apparently chastened by events, one of America’s most woke corporations, Starbucks, quietly removed materials promoting June’s “gay pride” agenda.
Accordingly, “politics is having real economic and financial spillover effects, making it increasingly difficult for investors to price in those risks,” David noted sourly.
In reality, the fact that so many companies have chosen to politicize their marketing and merchandise is the reason for the backlash. Deliberately moving away from the business of business and into overt politics and social activism, while not expecting a backlash in kind, is the height of folly.
