Ben & Jerry's Controversial Tweet Sparks Calls for Boycott Similar to Bud Light

Earlier this year, Bud Light and parent company Anheuser-Busch sparked outrage when they launched a campaign with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. According to reports, the beer manufacturer lost billions of dollars as a result of brand boycotts, despite cutting ties with Mulvaney almost immediately. This week, ice cream company Ben & Jerry's incited a similar response with conservative customers, after a July 4th tweet urging Americans to return "stolen indigenous land."

"The United States was founded on stolen indigenous land," a picture tweeted by Ben & Jerry's reads. "This fourth of July let's commit to returning it." 

It also included a tweet: "This 4th of July, it's high time we recognize that the US exists on stolen Indigenous land and commit to returning it." There was also a link to a petition. 

"Why are we talking about this? Because on the Fourth of July many people in the US celebrate liberty and independence—our country's and our own," a passage of the linked post reads. "But what is the meaning of Independence Day for those whose land this country stole, those who were murdered and forced with brutal violence onto reservations, those who were pushed from their holy places and denied their freedom? The faces on Mount Rushmore are the faces of men who actively worked to destroy Indigenous cultures and ways of life, to deny Indigenous people their basic rights."

Many people tweeted outrage in response to the tweet, many of them adding the hashtag #boycottbenandjerrys. "Make Ben & Jerry's Bud Light again," John Rich, a member of the country music duo Big & Rich, said.

"You sell ice cream…that's it..you are not the moral conscience of a nation…your product makes people fat…those folks who came across the Bering sea land bridge raped and pillaged and destroyed and enslaved one another…there was no nobility in savagery…" added John Devlin. 

"I guess Ben and Jerry's will find out that it's just as easy for us to reach into the adjacent freezer for a different brand of ice cream as it is to take a step over to the next refrigerator to buy something other than Bud Light," Twitter user ShotGunBonnie said.

"While Ben & Jerry's is one of the brands most associated with liberal causes and one could see this message as being on-brand for them, they've stumbled here," Professor Tony D'Angelo, of the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University, told The Telegraph. "The July 4th timing of such an extreme suggestion is designed to generate attention, but this is especially controversial because it's not at all clear how the US could even attempt to return the entirety of 'stolen indigenous land'. Therefore Ben & Jerry's tweet comes off as sanctimonious virtue signaling rather than sincere support of social justice."