The left-wing virtue signalers at Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream recently found that pushing progressivism is not so sweet.
According to The Epoch Times on Friday, Unilever, the parent company of the Vermont-based treat-maker, watched its market value plunge by $2 billion in a matter of days after the company offered a misguided Fourth of July tweet.
Keeping with the far-left politics of founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the company tweeted, “This 4th of July, it’s high time we recognize that the US exists on stolen Indigenous land and commit to returning it.”
Related: Ben & Jerry’s Lectures Americans Over ‘Stolen Land’ On Independence Day
The tweet included a link to an article on the company’s website that began: “Ah, the Fourth of July. Who doesn’t love a good parade, some tasty barbecue, and a stirring fireworks display? The only problem with all that, though, is that it can distract from an essential truth about this nation’s birth: The US was founded on stolen Indigenous land. This year, let’s commit to returning it. Here’s why we need to start with Mount Rushmore.”
“The faces on Mount Rushmore are the faces of men who actively worked to destroy Indigenous cultures and ways of life, to deny Indigenous people their basic rights,” the article continued. “The Indigenous-led Land Back movement is all about restoring the rights and freedoms of Indigenous people. It’s about dismantling white supremacy and systems of oppression and ensuring that Indigenous people can again govern the land their communities called home for thousands of years.”
Almost immediately, conservatives called for a boycott.
Country music star John Rich, for example, replied in a tweet, “Make @benndjerrys Bud Light again.”
Rich referred to the economic backlash that has cost Bud Light more than $20 billion in market value after conservatives walked away following the company’s support for transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
The New York Post, in an editorial, added of Ben & Jerry’s: “Remember, America, you don’t have to accept woke preening from corporate elites. Speak up—with your wallets.”
In the news: Bud Light Sinks Lower As Dylan Mulvaney Attacks
And Americans apparently did. The Times reported that in just three days, Unilever’s stock price dropped nearly 2%, or roughly $2 billion.
Meanwhile, critics called on Ben & Jerry’s to live up to their own left-wing rhetoric.
In an interview, Don Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan Band of The Coosuk Abenaki Nation, one of four Native American tribes that descend from the Abenaki and are recognized in Vermont, told the Post that Ben & Jerry’s headquarters sits on land that once belonged to his ancestors.
If the company is “sincere,” he told the Post, Ben & Jerry’s should consider surrendering its property to the Abenakis.
“If you look at the [Abenaki] traditional way of being, we are place-based people. Before recognized tribes in the state, we were the ones who were in this place,” Stevens said.
He added that he “looks forward to any kind of correspondence with [Ben & Jerry’s] to see how they can better benefit Indigenous people.”
No word yet from Ben or Jerry.
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