Target, the massive retail chain seen by many as a somewhat upscale version of Walmart, is once again under fire from conservatives, with Kid Rock, the country rock musician behind the beginning of the Bud Light boycott, helping kick off the renewed anti-Target sentiment.
As background, Target infuriated many conservatives over the summer when news broke that, for Pride month, it was carrying clothes designed by a Satanist and a “tuck-friendly” swimsuit, both of which were upsetting to people on the right, particularly those with conservative, religious views. A boycott was called for, though that proved less successful than the Bud Light boycott and the furor gradually abated.
But the Rock brought it back with a tweet on X about the Target swimsuit, Black Friday, and a music festival he is hosting called “Rock the Country,” which is generally being promoted as a somewhat conservative or right-leaning and very patriotic concert.
“Black Friday is here! You could go to Target and get a great deal on a women’s swimsuit with a penis pouch ….. or you could buy tickets to the most patriotic music gatherings in the world! http://rockthecountry.com Hope everyone had a terrific Thanksgiving, God Bless. -Kid Rock,” he wrote alongside a poster for the festival.
That was, for many, a reminder of why conservatives were supposed to be boycotting Target and what it had been up to that led to those calls for a boycott. The Target CEO, describing how the Pride collection led to problems for the store during a second-quarter earnings call, said, “In the second quarter, many of our store team members faced a negative guest reaction to our pride assortment. As you know, we have featured a pride assortment for more than a decade. However, after the launch of the assortment this year, members of our team began experiencing threats and aggressive actions that affected their sense of safety and well-being while at work.”
Though Rock is back to bashing Target, he has since backed off his Bud Light boycott. Explaining why in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, Rock said that he doesn’t “want to be in the party of cancel cultures and boycotts that ultimately hurt working-class people.”
Continuing, Rock told Hannity that the normal people working for the company are suffering, which is why he has decided to move on, saying, “I know people that work there and it’s not so cool to be wearing around that blue shirt anymore, going places. This is why they have a problem right now, it’s like, I can let the thing go.”
He then said that forgiveness is important, particularly if doing so means saving the jobs of normal people, saying, “As a God-fearing man, as a Christian, I have to believe in forgiveness. They made a mistake, all right. What do you want, hold their head under water and drown them and kill people’s jobs? I don’t want to do that. But I hope—at the same time, I don’t want to be their biggest cheerleader. I want them to show me something to get me back as a consumer, as a drinker.”
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