Cracker Barrel’s Rebranding Fail

The Cracker Barrel logo flap was more than a branding controversy, argues Christopher F. Rufo. It exposed how even companies that rely on conservative customers have drifted toward DEI, Pride, and race politics. After conservative activists highlighted the shift, Cracker Barrel reversed course amid a selloff that knocked its stock down as much as 17 percent.

Rufo points to three lessons conservatives should take from this episode: first, the Right can win culture fights; second, corporations follow the media narrative; and third, consumer reaction can change corporate behavior.

“Even if we don’t care about Cracker Barrel in particular,” Rufo writes, “we should all care about the ideological capture of American institutions and use whatever power we have to reverse it. And for that to occur, the Barrel must be broken.”

Earlier this month, a radical pro-Palestinian group called Within Our Lifetime marched across New York City. One demonstrator waved a Hezbollah flag, and others apparently vandalized a memorial in Morningside Park. The protest was the latest in a string of disruptive events that WOL has spearheaded in Gotham.

WOL is not a registered nonprofit, and its inner workings have long remained in the shadows. City Journal’s Stu Smith sheds light on the group and its efforts to sow chaos in New York. “Even as the activities of other pro-Palestinian groups have died down,” he warns, “WOL has continued its disruptive activity.” Read more here.

President Trump’s May 12 executive order, “Delivering Most-Favored-Nation Prescription Drug Pricing to American Patients,” takes aim at foreign countries that impose price controls on pharmaceuticals.

While Trump is right to highlight this and other ways that countries free ride on U.S. innovation, argues Burke Smith, the price-control policies outlined in the order “may be impossible to implement properly and could make life-saving medicine costlier.”

“Rather than import the socialist price control mechanisms that have created this problem, the Trump administration would be better served by using diplomacy to export a market-based approach,” Burke writes.

Read more here.

Last year, just 39 percent of poll respondents said that the quality of life in San Francisco was excellent or good. This year, that number jumped to 57 percent. Crime is down 27 percent year-over-year, and tent encampments are down 85 percent since the pandemic.

It’s fair to say that things are looking up in the city. And while a number of groups and individuals are lining up to take credit for San Francisco’s turnaround, one constituency’s significant contributions have largely been ignored: Republicans.

Read Jay Donde’s take on their efforts here.

“The people of these States need to wise up and quit voting for Democrats. The Colorado where I was born doesn’t resemble the mess that it is now. Shame on those that have run this State into the ditch.”

Photo credit: Jeff Greenberg / Contributor / Universal Images Group via Getty Images