LA Times Columnist Finds Silver Lining in Domestic Terrorism
Why does Jonah Goldberg think “America will be better for” the threats of violence that hounded Bud Light for working with a trans woman, and the campaign of terror against other brands that followed?
by Evan Urquhart
Most people condemn acts of domestic terror such as the bomb threat directed towards an Anheuser Busch brewing facility in Van Nuys California (reportedly only one of many), or the violent threats and threatening customer behavior that retail giant Target has listed as the reason they’re limiting their Pride month merchandise and hiding Pride displays at the back of their establishments. Jonah Goldberg, writing for the LA Times, sees an upside. The right wing columnist is looking forward to a time when brands are less “political.” By less political, it seems, he means that some types of people won’t be represented in advertisements or have merchandise tailored to their interests due to reasonable fears of far-right violence.
Goldberg’s column continues the larger mainstream trend of downplaying the central role of threats and violent in-store behavior in the story of how brands are being cowed into submission by far-right extremists, referring only to “anti-woke campaigners” and not to the specifics of how their campaign has been conducted. Goldberg then goes one step further and concludes that the impact of companies fearing for their workers’ safety will be positive.
screenshot from the LA Times
In America, the terms “political” and “apolitical” have long had an ironic political valence to them. Bud Light partnering with a popular TikTok influencer was genuinely apolitical, a move taken by a brand hoping to sell some beer to a new demographic of drinkers. By contrast, praising a far-right terrorist campaign because you like the result of making brands afraid to see the LGBTQ+ community as customers is extremely political. Goldberg wants an America where the far-right has an unquestioned and complete cultural hegemony and while he claims he doesn’t like the violent excesses, he’s willing to accept them.
The conventional wisdom has it that real Americans hate queers, so even though the backlash is being driven by a small number of extremists who are reliant on violence and the threats to register at all, the fact that real Americans aren’t actually being represented by this behavior is hidden from the public. Instead, while violence from the far right is acknowledged in passing as the primary motivation for the actions corporations take, it’s also whitewashed with the language of controversy and backlash. What’s controversial isn’t anything LGBTQ+ people do: Dylan Mulvaney never did anything! Target sold a swimsuit with a particularly modest gusset! This is how the removal of LGBTQ+ people from public life advances, with the continued existence of queer people portrayed as political and divisive, and our eradication sold in the pages of major mainstream newspapers as a return to normalcy.
