MAGA fans call for boycott of Dunkin Donuts: ‘The Bud Lite treatment’

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Followers of Donald Trump are calling for a boycott of Dunkin’ Donuts after the chief executive of Rumble claimed that the coffee chain refused to advertise on the conservative video platform because of its “right-wing culture”.

Rumble has joined Elon Musk’s X in a lawsuit against a number of advertisers that they say have declined to do business with them because of the right-wing content on their platforms, Newsweek reported.

On Wednesday Chris Pavlovski, Rumble’s CEO, posted on X that the company had contacted Dunkin’ Donuts, and its parent Inspire Brands, about advertising on the video platform, because its users “over indexes with coffee consumption.”

Pavlovski then shared what appeared to be an email from the company, which was partially redacted and did not show who had sent it. The Rumble CEO implied that the email had come from an advertising executive at Dunkin or Inspire Brands.

“To be honest ... I would be opposed to showing up on the current version of the platform—the right wing culture of the site is too polarizing from a brand suitability standpoint today,” the message read.

The Independent has contacted Dunkin’ Donuts for comment.

Pavlovski also claimed that advertisers have organized to avoid Rumble as it hosts a number of pundits banned from other platforms. These include conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has been ordered to pay nearly $1bn to families of the Sandy Hook school shooting after claiming their children hadn’t been killed but instead were “crisis actors.”

Rumble also hosts far-right commentator Nick Fuentes, who has falsely claimed that only between 200,000 and 300,000 people died in the Holocaust. Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis. Of Jewish people, Fuentes has also said: “We will make them die in the holy war.”

#BoycottDunkinDonuts began trending on X on Wednesday. MAGA influencer, catturd2, wrote on X: “They thought they could bully Rumble into dropping their biggest podcasts behind the scenes. I know this for a fact. It’s time to BudLight- @dunkindonuts. Boycott them. We have to stick together.”

Other MAGA followers piled on to the calls for a boycott. iAnonPatriot wrote: “Time to give Dunkin’ Donuts the Bud Light treatment. Go Woke, Go Broke.”

Bud Light experienced a decrease in sales and the stock price of parent company, Anheuser-Busch InBev, following a rightwing boycott of the beer in April 2023. The boycott came after Bud Light collaborated with trans social media personality Dylan Mulvaney.