Corporate America Tilts Left

It must be disorienting to be a leftist. After decades of railing against big business, leftists woke up one morning to find that big business is–mostly–on their side.

We wrote yesterday about Nike’s nixing of the American flag. Here are two similar stories from the corporate world.

UnderArmour [Correction: it’s BodyArmor, as the linked article says. They are two different companies.], a manufacturer of sports beverages, has made a commercial featuring soccer player Megan Rapinoe, who has refused to stand for the American flag and has sparred with President Trump. That makes her a hot commodity in the world of advertising. Note that Ad Age, an industry publication for advertising and public relations employees, considers this completely natural:

Megan Rapinoe has made countless headlines during the Women’s World Cup—for scoring big for the U.S. team, but also for taking a stand against President Donald Trump.

Now sports drink BodyArmor has released a new ad starring Rapinoe that will surely get under the skin of the president and his supporters.

The spot, shot in black-and-white, shows Rapinoe staring straight ahead, as this text flies by: “Nothing like a 30-something, purple haired, fiercely independent, goal-scoring, guitar-strumming, outspoken, relentless competitor that stands for all that is beautiful, all that is good, all that is us. Now that’s America. Thanks, Megan. Let’s go USA!”

Rapinoe has been hailed by liberals for saying that if the U.S. women’s team wins the World Cup, “I am not going to the fucking White House.” I am so old, I can remember when this would not have made an athlete a hot advertising property. You actually have to read to near the end of the Ad Age piece to understand what the controversy surrounding Rapinoe is all about:

Rapinoe, incidentally, is linked to Kaepernick: As Mother Jones recently reported, she was the “first white or female athlete to take a knee during the national anthem in support of football player Colin Kaepernick’s protest of America’s systemic oppression of people of color.” The liberal magazine also pointed out that “she is not singing the anthem during this year’s World Cup. And she has been outspoken on LGBTQ issues and social change.”

Such views represent endorsement gold in today’s corporate world.

Next: Et tu, Oreo? The Federalist reports:

Oreo cookies, a division of international foods giant Nabisco, announced yesterday a “special” LGBT edition that includes lectures about how to use transgender pronouns.

“We’re proud to celebrate inclusivity for all gender identities and expressions,” the company wrote in its Facebook post announcing the change. “In partnership with NCTE, we’re giving away special edition Pronoun Packs and encouraging everybody to share their pronouns with Pride today and every day.”

NCTE is the National Council of Teachers of English. While it sounds benign, this massive organization that affects millions of teachers all over the country—and helped write Common Core—has been politically far leftist for decades.

These are the LGBT Oreos:

Nabisco’s Oreo initiative isn’t anti-American like UnderArmour’s or Nike’s, but it adopts the pet leftist project of the moment, seemingly to appeal to a small slice of the population.

Countless more examples of corporate America’s left-wing orientation could be adduced. Facebook is an obvious and timely example. The corporate drift to the left is unmistakable; why it is happening is a topic for another day.

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