Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert demanded shoppers “boycott ANY product North Face has ever made” over the popular outdoor clothing maker’s “Summer of Pride” ad starring drag queen Pattie Gonia,
In a tweet posted Thursday, the Colorado lawmaker said: “How many times do we have to explain to the woke marketing departments at these disgusting companies that America is not a nation of degenerates?”
Boebert’s outrage over The North Face’s campaign mimics the conservative backlash unleashed against Bud Light and Target over their LGBTQ campaigns.
“Well, I guess North Face wanted to get a taste of what conservatives did to Bud Light and Target,” Boebert tweeted.
She ended her tweetstorm by telling her 2.5 million followers to “make it as shameful to wear North Face as it is to drink Bud Light!”
“Let’s make it as shameful to wear North Face as it is to drink Bud Light!
The North Face featured the drag queen in a post on its Instagram on Wednesday, promoting the company’s “Summer of Pride” event series.
The ad features the mustachioed Patty Gonia wearing multicolored makeup and dressed in all-rainbow North Face gear while suggestively inviting fans to “come out” for events that have “everything: hiking, community, art, lesbians, lesbians making art.”
North Face has also released its 2023 Pride collection, which boasts a selection of rainbow-clad clothes for children, including a T-shirt that says “outdoors together.”
Boebert’s tweet demanding social media users boycott the brand has been viewed more than 1.1 million times since it was posted, with people quick to liken North Face to Bud Light and Target.
Bud Light sparked conservative outcry after it sent a personalized can to trans social media star Dylan Mulvaney to celebrate her “365 Days of Girlhood” on April 1.
The nation’s top-selling beer brand is still seeing sales plummet, reporting a 24.6% dip for the week ended May 13 compared to a year ago — slightly worse than the 23.6% dip the once-most-popular beer suffered a week earlier, according to Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ research.
But Bud Light, once rated America’s most popular beer, isn’t the only brew in Anheuser-Busch’s portfolio suffering from backlash over the partnership.
Michelob Ultra, which was the No. 3 beer with more than $3.3 billion in sales in 2022, saw a 2.9% dip in sales the week ending May 13 versus a year ago, Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ data revealed.
And Budweiser, last year’s No. 7 beer with more than $1.8 billion in sales, saw a staggering 9.7% drop in sales in each of the two most recent weeks.
Sales of Busch Light were down 6.8% compared to 0.3% decline the previous week, while Anheuser-Busch’s Natural Light sales were down by 2.8% in the week ended May 13 compared to a 2.5% decline the previous week.
In its latest scramble to recover from the controversy, Bud Light maker Anheuser-Busch is pretty much giving away beer with a “summer rebate” to “make your Memorial Day weekend easier to enjoy.”
Now through May 31, customers who purchase a 15-pack or larger of Bud Light, Budweiser, Budweiser Select or Budweiser Select 55 will receive a $15 rebate.
For reference, a 15-pack of Bud Light is listed for $12.99 on Target’s website, the same price as a 15-pack of Budweiser.
Meanwhile, Target has also found itself in the middle of controversy over the release of “PRIDE,” an LGBTQ-friendly line featuring “tuck-friendly” swimwear and apparel including pro-gay messages for kids.
The Minneapolis-based chain has lost $9 billion in the last week since igniting its own controversy and has announced it will remove some of the offending items partly due to their workers’ safety fears.
The online fury has spilled over into the retailer’s aisles, with a MAGA hat-wearing provocateur filmed ripping down a “#TakePride” sign from a clothing rack of LGBTQ apparel.
Another self-proclaimed patriot and activist, Scott LoBaido, filmed himself on Wednesday at a Staten Island Target location shouting: “Memorial Day weekend, where is the display supporting and showing homage to the men and women of the military?”
“There’s a couple of little ‘Made in China’ pieces of s–t here,” he adds, pointing to a small, three-shelf section with red, white and blue paraphernalia.
“In November, do we get a veterans display that says ‘Proud to be a veteran’? No, we do not,” LoBaido says before a Target employee approaches and asks him to stop screaming.
One Target shopper provided a more cheeky protest, placing a case of Bud Light on a rack promoting Pride items — a reference to the beer brand’s ill-fated partnership with trans social media star Dylan Mulvaney.
“Completed the Target display,” wrote one Twitter user after a photo was posted to the social media site.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
