Last year, massive boycotts of businesses such as Target and Bud Light forced corporations to rethink their June “Pride Month” strategies. Bud Light hemorrhaged money after hiring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote their brand. The losses were so bad, the BBC reports, that more than a year later the beer giant is “showing no signs of recovery.” Bud Light is no longer the top-selling beer in the country. Target, which had taken the lead on promoting the LGBT agenda as long ago as 2016, admitted that a massive sales drop in June was due to widespread outrage over their pride merchandise aimed at children and infants. 

The right, understandably, took a victory lap this June as it appears the backlash will be relatively long-lasting. Conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey noted how businesses that went all in for Pride Month last year appear to be barely acknowledging it this year. 

“None of the businesses I frequent have pride stuff out this year,” she wrote on X. “Most of them did last year. One in particular had a whole rainbow apparel display—this year, nothing. Anyone else see the same thing?”

“Nobody in the media, marketing and advertising world wants to admit how heavy and hard this has been,” said Matt Skallerud, president of Pink Media, a company that encourages brands to take pro-LGBT stands. “Ever since Target and Bud Light had their fiascos last year, a tremendous number of brands have decided it would be much better to sit on the sidelines and let this sort itself out.” 

Bud Light has remained politically neutral, at least outwardly so, and Target won’t sell its pride merchandise at brick-and-mortar stores. USA Today reports that conservative backlash is causing a noted decrease in pride celebrations at major American corporations. Yet there is reason for caution.

Perhaps because they are so conditioned to losing, conservatives often take a half-victory as good enough. The left, of course, does no such thing. After a massive loss in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center, which overturned Roe v. Wade, the left lost no time in passing laws in every state they could protecting a mother’s “right” to end the life of an unborn child. Conservatives were caught flat-footed, and quickly resorted to infighting and finger-pointing on the issue.

Donald Trump has already encouraged Americans to give Bud Light a “second chance,” calling it a “great American brand.” Naïvely, he believes Anheuser-Busch (now owned by the multinational InBev corporation) learned their lesson.

These minor retreats from the cultural left, however, are little more than tactical. Just because the right appears to be winning on corporate LGBT activism now, it is no time to turn down the heat on the predatorial agenda of the LGBT mob.

Let us not forget just how awful the corporate activism we rebelled against really was. Target was selling “chest binders” to young girls, and they weren’t the only ones marketing LGBT-themed clothing to children. Bud Light bolstered a notoriously sexist transgender man in an obvious middle finger to its customer base. The Pentagon used taxpayer dollars for an on-base drag show. A major league baseball team invited a drag group known for demeaning depictions of Jesus Christ to perform at a Pride Day game. 

Has Target fired all its LGBT inclusion diversity chiefs? Is the MLB donating to any predatorial LGBT groups this June? These companies aren’t going to learn their lesson from one month of plummeting profits. Until we’re certain of a total victory, we have no reason to declare one. The left will gladly play a long game of two steps forward, one step back if the right will let them.

Less than 20 years ago, California voters defeated a measure to legally recognize same-sex unions as marriages. Such a vote would be unthinkable, even in a red state now. That’s how far the left has managed to take America. If we let up now, conservatives in 10 years will be angrier that Bud Light didn’t hire a “conservative transgender influencer” than that they partnered with a transgender influencer at all. 

Besides, the left is relentless in demanding complete fealty from their corporate henchmen.  The pressure for these companies to return to June 2023 standards will be strong, the pressure from the right must simply be stronger.