• by Danielle Oster , July 22, 2024

A group aligned with billionaire Leonard Leo contributed $350,000 to an organization behind a “Woke Alert” campaign targeting brands' Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives, The Guardian reported.

While often portrayed as simple consumer “backlash,” the anti-LGBTQ+ boycott of Bud Light over a partnership with a trans influencer on a single Instagram post was fueled by right-wing cultural and media figures.

According to new reports, it was also boosted by right-wing billionaire Leonard Leo, in addition to the one who owns the social-media platform where the hate campaign largely spread.

Last week, The Guardian reported that Leo appears to have helped finance efforts to spread the anti-LGBTQ+ campaign as part of a larger political project targeting corporate ESG initiatives.

Leo is a longtime conservative legal advocate who played an instrumental role in helping achieve a far-right supermajority in the Supreme Court, which led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Tax filings obtained by The Guardian linked a group closely tied to Leo -- a conservative advocacy group known as Concord Fund (formerly Judicial Crisis Network) -- with a $350,000 donation in 2022 to the right-wing Consumers' Research group, which it says is also a client of Leo's CRC Advisors consultancy.

In 2023, not long after the cash infusion from the group affiliated with Leo, Consumers' Research launched a "six-figure 'woke alerts' digital ad campaign," according to The Guardian, seeking to spread anti-LGBTQ+ campaigns and other far-right boycott efforts by giving instructions on which brands to target next. It offers to text consumers with information about whether a given brand's product is “woke” or not.

That campaign was not limited to Bud Light, and it appears to be ongoing in one form or another.

Consumers' Research has an ongoing, updated “Woke Alert” list on its website and continues to invite viewers to sign up for such “alerts,” and its efforts appear to have had an impact.

The most recent brand targeted as "woke" by the billionaire-backed group is John Deere. A Consumers' Research post claims that the John Deere brand has "gone full woke" and was "recently exposed for turning on its customer base by embracing radical leftist ideology like diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and hosting Pride shows for young children" -- linking to a long social media post by far-right media personality Robby Starbuck, who co-directed a 2024 anti-trans propaganda film called “The War On Children.”

Presented as a documentary, the anti-LGBTQ+ film was later exposed for deceptive editing and misleading film subjects about the nature of the film in order to get their participation, according to reporting by Rolling Stone.

John Deere recently announced it was making a series of changes to its external sponsorships, DEI practices, and other corporate policies. “We will no longer participate in or support external social or cultural awareness parades, festivals, or events,” the company's statement announcing such changes read, in part.

According to a report by ProPublica, in a speech accepting an award from the Catholic Information Center, Leo said Catholicism was under threat from “vile and immoral current-day barbarians, secularists and bigots,” referring to those who oppose his views as “the progressive Ku Klux Klan” and “deeply wounded people whom the devil can easily take advantage of.”

A recent report by the ANA's Alliance For Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing found a clear link between companies' inclusive practices and business success, with 61% of organizations reporting validated business growth from multicultural spending.