June 02, 2023 10:17 AM UTC

Anti-Wokesters Come For Chick-Fil-A

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the New York Times reported this week, the culture war backlash from the far right against all things “woke,” which seems to mean every inclusionary policy put in place since the civil rights era half a century ago, has come full circle to claim one of its earliest allies:

Chick-fil-A drew fierce criticism this week from conservatives calling out the fast-food chain for its diversity, equity and inclusion policy and questioning the hiring of an executive to be in charge of such efforts.

The backlash has made Chick-fil-A one of the latest companies to draw public condemnation over “culture war” flash points like L.G.B.T.Q. rights or seeking fair treatment for racial or ethnic groups that have been historically underrepresented. Several companies and brands have also been at the center of such criticism in recent months, including Bud Light, Target and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Chick-fil-A itself has drawn controversy in the past, though more typically from the left…

And here’s the weird part, since when these irrational culture warriors are involved there is always a weird part:

It was unclear why Chick-fil-A was only drawing criticism now for its D.E.I. efforts, since the company has long had such a policy in place. As for [Erick] McReynolds, company records show that he had been the company’s vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion since at least 2020. [Pols emphasis]

Chick-fil-a’s efforts to moderate their once staunchly conservative brand in order to appeal to conscientious customers who had avoided them for years are nothing new, but the conservatives who once flocked to the restaurant in part because of their politics are apparently just now realizing that this has happened as other large corporations come under fire from the right for their own inclusionary branding. And as Media Matters reports, Newsmax guests are happy to broaden the offense beyond the LGBT community:

But it’s pretty ridiculous to just assume that Chick-Fil-A — I mean, you know, I’m hesitant to make a fried chicken joke, but they sell fried chicken. I don’t know how much more inclusive we can get here.

This called to mind for us the infamous moment in the Colorado legislature a decade ago when then-GOP state Sen. Vickie Marble blamed “problems in the Black race” for a range of health problems, despite the fact that she has been to the South and “never had better BBQ and better chicken.” Marble’s Weld County frenemy Lori Saine kept the poultry partiality going with her own fowl-based foul a few weeks later.

Marble and Saine no doubt approve of the crusade against the nation’s foremost supplier of consecrated chicken products, but far-right Republicans spending so much of their time these days attacking businesses like Chick-Fil-a and Anheuser-Busch–the latter a major donor to GOP candidates and campaigns across the country–while losing the much more weighty debates like the debt limit shows once again how far off the ball Republican eyes are. There just aren’t enough voters motivated by wedge issues anymore, and far more of today’s voters are repulsed by Republican appeals to prejudice.

In Colorado, this is what Republicans did ten years ago…on their way to losing everything.