Liberal activists, always on the lookout for businesses and individuals who can be harassed over their support of the current president, have started boycotting Olive Garden restaurants across the nation.
The reason? A rumor started on Twitter stating that Olive Garden had donated money to President Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. The original tweet seems to have come from the account of a college professor who has also spouted off conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein. It went viral, receiving more than 50,000 retweets before the account was deleted.
Olive Garden was forced to explain, repeatedly, to Twitter activists that the restaurant does not donate money to any political candidates. News media outlets were also contacted with the evidence-backed information that Olive Garden does not give money to either Democrat or Republican politicians running for national office. Local restaurant outlets even posted notifications for employees.
Left-leaning “fact-checker” Snopes and other researchers have backed up Olive Garden’s assertions, noting that while restaurant employees have donated their own money to presidential and other national candidates, Olive Garden as a business does not run a PAC or give money to national candidates.
Unfortunately, even factual-based evidence was not enough to totally stop the #boycottOliveGarden hashtag from trending on Twitter. Another rumor arose suggesting that Olive Garden’s parent company Darden Restaurants was supporting President Trump. Once again, no one really knows where the information came from, or who began tweeting about it, but activists freaked out all the same. Darden was then forced to respond that, like Olive Garden, it does not give money to either Democratic or Republican candidates.
Once again, research has found that Darden is being honest about its lack of interest in national politics, but it remains to be seen if Olive Garden, or other restaurants owned by the company, will be able to weather the storm caused by the recent accusations.
Olive Garden isn’t the only company to face the ire of misinformed leftists. Just last month, Democrat Rep. Joaquin Castro posted the names of individuals and businesses in his city who gave money to President Trump’s re-election campaign. Celebrities and liberal activists recently called for the boycott of both Equinox and Soul Cycle, because the billionaire who owns the parent company for these two luxury gym chains hosted a pro-Trump event. Other chains that have been accused of backing the president’s re-election campaign include Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Chick-Fil-A, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and IHOP.
It isn’t just “conservative” business owners and individuals who are being harassed and threatened for failing to adhere to the PC orthodoxy. Even non-partisan businesses are now fair game, and it only takes a single tweet from one person with too much time on their hands to start a nationwide boycott against an established company.
While Olive Garden has quickly and effectively responded to the recent accusations, it remains to be seen if the boycott will affect their restaurants throughout the nation.
