Conservatives Are Running Out of Things to Eat

Another day, another right-wing call to boycott a brand for appearing even slightly tolerant of transgender people.

Conservatives are now calling to boycott Frosted Flakes cereal after their official mascot, Tony the Tiger, was pictured with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney at the Tony Awards on Sunday.

This is unfortunately not the first time that Mulvaney has been at the center of a far-right firestorm. Both she and Bud Light received backlash in March over a campaign she did with the beer brand. That incident has kicked off a spree of right-wing calls for boycotts.

But at this rate, conservatives are rapidly running out of places to eat, drink, and shop. Far-right podcast host Joey Mannarino announced he would be “dumping out my Frosted Flakes” over its association with Mulvaney and switching to Froot Loops. He did not seem to realize that both cereal brands are owned by Kellogg’s, so he’s not actually sending his money somewhere else.

People are also boycotting Chick-fil-A because it has an H.R. department. They are refusing to eat at Cracker Barrel after the chain posted favorably about Pride on social media.

Right-wingers are boycotting Target, Walmart, and Kohl’s for their Pride merchandise. Target has even received bomb threats. Nike and Adidas are selling trans-inclusive athletic wear, so they’re off the table too. The North Face did a campaign featuring a drag queen named Pattie Gonia, so conservatives are shopping elsewhere.

They may want to skip Patagonia too, since the company has also partnered with Pattie Gonia. While they’re at it, people on the far right will probably also have to drop Ruger, Black Rifle Coffee, Home Depot, and Molson Coors, all of which have teams dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

If conservatives really want to only support nonwoke businesses, their options are growing fewer by the day.

If there’s one thing most people in America agree on, it’s that we need more gun laws. And Tennesseans—even ones polled by the Tennessee Firearms Association—are no different.

Published at the beginning of June, the poll found a narrow plurality of people who felt gun laws are not strict enough. Sixty-two percent of people supported red flag laws, policies that stop people from owning a firearm if they are flagged to be a danger to themselves or others; only 25 percent of respondents were opposed.

The results follow two other polls with similar findings. An April poll conducted by Embold Research found 88 percent of respondents supporting background checks for all gun sales and 70 percent in favor of red flag laws.

Another poll conducted by Vanderbilt University found 72 percent of respondents supporting red flag laws, with a whopping 82 percent supporting Governor BIll Lee’s executive order to strengthen background checks. In the context of school shootings, a whole 50 percent supported banning assault weapons outright.

It’s clear that amid the Nashville school shooting that left six people dead, and the subsequent Republican failure to enact gun safety policy (and instead punish three Democrats who stood in solidarity with thousands of Tennesseans demanding action), voters have dramatically flipped their perception of the GOP-led state legislature.

Last year, the Vanderbilt poll found 55 percent of voters approving of the legislature, and 34 percent disapproving—a net approval of 21 percent. Their latest poll showed a net approval of negative 5 percent, with only 43 percent approving and 48 percent disapproving, a 26 percent dip.

The disapproval is unsurprising too given that, while scores of Tennesseans want red flag laws, state Republicans have been staunchly against them. In April, the party issued a incoherent statement announcing their total opposition to red flag laws. “[A]ny red flag law is a non-starter,” the party said, while also saying in the same breath they are “focused on finding solutions that prevent dangerous individuals from harming the public.”

Tennessee Republicans have repeatedly shut down such laws that could’ve prevented the school shooting: once two years ago, and again in April—right after the shooting.

The pattern of disapproval for Republican deregulation comes while 217 House Republicans—including all of Tennessee’s Republican representatives—voted to weaken gun safety regulation on Tuesday; the members voted to repeal regulation over attachments used in the Nashville shooting.

While Donald Trump was being arraigned for the second time in months, the rest of his party was busy weakening gun regulations in a country that has suffered at least 291 mass shootings this year alone.

On Tuesday, 217 House Republicans voted to repeal a federal rule designed to curb such senseless violence. Two conservative Blue Dog Democrats, Jared Golden and Mary Peltola, joined Republicans. Two Republicans, Brian Fitzpatrick and Thomas Kean, voted alongside 208 Democrats to protect the gun safety measure.

The Republicans voted to overturn a Biden administration rule issued in January that clarified that any firearm with a stabilizing brace allowing it to be shot from the shoulder counts as a rifle and has to be registered with the government as such.

While the stabilizing brace has been used by gun owners without full use of both of their arms, the attachment has also enabled mass shooters to cause further destruction. One of the guns reportedly used in the Nashville school shooting that left six people dead, for instance, was an AR-15 pistol equipped with a stabilizing brace. Such an attachment was also used in the 2021 mass shooting at a Boulder, Colorado, grocery store that left 10 people dead.

Nevertheless, Republicans voted to weaken oversight over such weapons—just days after survivors from numerous mass shootings visited the Hill to ask members of Congress for even a smidgen of meaningful action on guns.

The vote, House Resolution 44, was part of Republicans’ efforts to restart House floor business amid internal party disputes, after some members last week voted down a rule for the first time in decades, putting House business at a standstill for days.

The vote now heads to the Senate. Even if it passes the narrowly split chamber, President Biden has said he will veto the attempt to weaken gun safety regulation.

Amid the drama and the Republican effort to weaken the government’s ability to protect its people, Democrats have filed measures to welcome floor votes on several measures seeking to reduce gun violence. Representatives Lucy McBath, James Clyburn, and Mike Thompson each filed their own petitions to force votes on things like increasing background checks and banning assault weapons. The Democrats would need just five Republicans to join them in triggering a vote on any of the bills.

A 9-year-old girl was left sobbing after she was falsely accused of being transgender just because she has short hair, in a clear sign of how transphobia harms everyone.

The girl was competing in a shot put event at her elementary school in British Columbia, Canada, last week, when the grandfather of another girl demanded to know why a boy was competing in a girls’ event.

The girl’s two mothers allege that the man, who has been identified as a 68-year-old named Josef Tesar, shouted, “Hey, this is supposed to be a girls’ event, and why are you letting boys compete?”

One of the mothers, Heidi Starr, said Tesar insisted, “If she is not a boy, then she is obviously trans,” and repeatedly shouted for people to “get that boy off the field.” Starr said her daughter is female, identifies as a girl, and wears a pixie haircut.

Starr said that Tesar demanded to see proof her daughter was born female. “I said … ‘Are you asking for a certificate proving that my daughter was born with a vagina [and] you need a proof of her genitals?’” Starr told the CBC.

She also said his wife called her a “genital mutilator, a groomer, and a pedophile.”

As for her daughter, “she was physically vibrating,” Starr said. “She was sobbing. She was in and out of tears all day till bedtime that day,” which happened to be her birthday.

Tesar and his wife have denied that they yelled at the girl specifically. He accused the mothers of trying to “satisfy an agenda” and “fabricate the lies and hate towards us.”

His wife insisted she “said something appropriate. Not those words.… Maybe something like, ‘F off.’”

The Kelowna Royal Canadian Mounted Police are now investigating the incident. The superintendent for the Central Okanagan Public Schools, which hosted the sports competition, said Tuesday that they were in the process of banning Tesar from all school properties and events.

But the entire incident shows how far the effects of transphobia reach. People who push to ban trans girls from girls’ sports say they are trying to protect children. Instead, such policies give people permission to attack people of all ages, including children, to question their identities, and accuse them of somehow lying.

“Those who push anti-trans hate want to roll us back to an idealized version of the past,” Fae Johnstone, executive director of the Canadian social justice consulting firm Wisdom 2 Action, tweeted about the attack. “One where women are forced to look and act a certain way. One where gender conformity is enforced through hate, shame, and stigma.”

“Fighting anti-trans hate is key to a feminist future.”

Donald Trump might actually be looking down the barrel of accountability, for once in his life. And he’s terrified at the prospect.

“He’s scared shitless,” John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, told The Washington Post. “This is the way he compensates for that. He gives people the appearance he doesn’t care by doing this. For the first time in his life, it looks like he’s being held accountable. Up until this point in his life, it’s like, I’m not going to pay you, take me to court. He’s never been held accountable before.”

And while Trump faces 37 counts of mishandling secret government documents, the overcompensation is certainly evident. Inside the courtroom Tuesday, Trump reportedly remained silent, with special counsel Jack Smith’s eyes trained on him throughout the entire arraignment.

After his arrest, Trump fled to his Bedminster, New Jersey, private golf club, to deliver remarks to a mix of Republican donors, party members, and a slew of other allies (all people whose eyes wouldn’t make him feel uncomfortable, unlike earlier in the day).

The Post reports that the crowd included the likes of Senator Tommy Tuberville (whose attendance allowed Democrats to confirm Biden’s pick for the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, 50–49), conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, and Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno (who wants reparations for white people and whose family gave maximum donations to serial liar George Santos). All that to say, Trump enjoyed a friendly crowd to cleanse his palate from being in the courtroom earlier.

“It’s part public relations and part babysitting,” Stephanie Grisham, one of Trump’s former White House press secretaries, told the Post. “He wants people to see the cheering crowds so they don’t think anything is going wrong. It’s also because the staff around him want to keep him busy and wants to have people cheering for him and giving him the ego stroke that he’ll need so they don’t have to deal with him being completely pissed.”

After the arraignment but before the lovefest, Trump also visited Versailles, a Miami Cuban restaurant. There, a reporter asked Trump if he was ready to go to jail, and hordes of loyal supporters immediately activated, targeting her like sharks smelling blood:

Most members of the press were kicked out from the event, perhaps to make sure Trump had the safest space possible, so he wouldn’t feel triggered or uncomfortable. Trump has weathered being impeached twice, indicted, and found liable for sexual abuse. But as he faced perhaps the strongest legal challenge yet—with more and more Republicans beginning to actually come out against him—all he could look to as a crutch was his final, most relentless fans singing “Happy Birthday” to him one day before his seventy-seventh birthday.