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Welcome back to False Flag! We had a packed MAGA Monday livestream this morning, with topics including the right’s dissatisfaction with the lackluster “Freedom 250” musical lineup.
We also talked about the rancorous weekend the Proud Boys had after a few of the group’s local members pulled up to an anti-ICE protest with a plate of cookies, prompting the national organization to disavow them as true Proud Boys. Check back next Monday at 10 a.m. to find out if the Boys stopped fighting over their cookies.
Today, we’ve got a look at some sneaky attempts among MAGA influencers to paint motorcycle giant Harley-Davidson as too progressive—all for the benefit of one of Harley’s corporate rivals. If it smells like payola, if it tastes like payola, if it looks like payola, it’s probably payola.
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–Will
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THE CONSERVATIVE INFLUENCERS have spoken: Harley-Davidson—whose motorcycles helped create the paradigm of American masculinity—is in fact woke and gay.
The past week has seen wave after wave of MAGA personalities and meme accounts decide, seemingly out of nowhere, that Harley-Davidson was company non grata. MAGA influencer Priya Patel declared the manufacturer “fundamentally anti-American,” while Hercules actor-turned-tweeter Kevin Sorbo said his friends were abandoning Harley-Davidson en masse.
Conservative meme account “Prison Mitch” told his more than 100,000 followers that Harley-Davidson is “woke and gay” then posted a picture of a man in a biker’s vest having gay sex (jarring but basically SFW), quipping that Harley-Davidson riders rode a very different kind of “hog.”
Right-wing attacks on supposedly liberal corporations aren’t new. But, beyond the confrontational imagery, this campaign against the motorcycle giant stands out for the fact that Harley-Davidson doesn’t appear to have done anything terribly “woke.”
Instead, the effort seems designed squarely just to benefit Indian Motorcycle, a Harley rival. How can you tell? Because basically every influencer throwing a grenade at Harley is also simultaneously boosting its competitor. Prison Mitch, for example, posted a Marco Rubio meme with the secretary of state in an Indian biker’s vest.
“Harley Davidson spent years pandering to activists and corporate DEI politics,” complained pro-Trump personality Isabella Maria DeLuca, who is not a noted motorcycle enthusiast. “Indian Motorcycle spent years building motorcycles and honoring American heritage.”
The curious operation against Harley-Davidson appears to be just the latest example of pay-for-play coverage on the right, in which undisclosed payments wash through MAGA media with the apparent aim of whipping up a social media frenzy against a “woke” business or political foe.
It’s not clear who, if anyone, organized the latest attacks. And neither Harley-Davidson nor Indian responded to requests for comment. But the arrangement seemed obvious enough that Trump adviser and digital political consultant Alex Bruesewitz, openly blurted out that it had to be the end product of a paid campaign.
“Here is an example of a coordinated influencer campaign on X,” Bruesewitz tweeted last week, attaching a screenshot of one post from the apparent campaign. “Copy and paste talking points about a random issue. And yes, foreign countries also pay influencers for certain campaigns like this. We need stronger disclosure laws!”
Bruesewitz quickly deleted the tweet, and hasn’t commented on the matter since.
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The bizarre storm began on Wednesday, when mixed martial arts fighter Sean Strickland posted that he was ditching Harley-Davidson motorcycles for the, in his view, substantially less woke Indian Motorcycle.
“Officially made the switch to Indian Motorcycle,” Strickland