An entrepreneur on the front lines of the corporate culture wars told Fox New Digital that the “elitist jerks and hypocrites” at brands like Harley Davidson and Bud Light are the main culprits behind the woke-induced meltdowns suffered by corporate America in recent years.
“This is business fundamentals: You can't neglect your core consumers and alienate or abandon them in order to grow and expand elsewhere,” said Jennifer Say, a former senior marketing executive at Levi Strauss & Co.
Harley-Davidson's German-born CEO and chairman of the board, Jochen Zeitz, has been lambasted by longtime loyal customers for trying to remake the bike's strong American image and critics accuse him of embracing progressive policies that clash with the values of his most loyal customers.
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“We are challenging traditional capitalism and redefining it,” Zeitz told world leaders at a conference in Switzerland in 2020, when he became Harley's president.
In the same speech, Zeitz likened himself to the Taliban and declared his commitment to “sustainability.”
Jennifer Say, a former senior executive at Levi Strauss & Co. who clashed with executives over the coronavirus lockdowns in 2020, launched XX-XY Athletics in March 2024. (XX-XY Athletics)
Simmering discontent among Harley-Davidson's loyal customers exploded into open rebellion against the brand after Zeitz's internal plans were exposed by corporate watchdog Lobby Starbuck.
“They killed Harley. It breaks my heart,” Vinnie Terranova, owner of Pappy's Vintage Cycles in Sturgis, South Dakota, and a former Harley-Davidson dealership owner, told Fox News Digital.
“This is 'business basics'. Don't neglect your core consumers.”
Say, a former Levi's executive, has witnessed the corporate culture wars from the front lines of the boardroom battlefield. She became a C-suite celebrity in 2020, tasked with managing, honing and growing the iconic Levi's brand. Founded in 1853 in San Francisco by German immigrant Levi Strauss, Levi's jeans have gained global fame as a symbol of American culture and opportunity.
Jochen Zeitz, president, CEO and chairman of the board of Harley-Davidson, attends the trading opening of electric motorcycle spinoff Livewire on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, USA, September 27, 2022. REUTERS/Brendan MacDermid (Reuters/Brendan McDiarmid)
But then the “lifelong Democrat” was shaken from his corporate comforts by speaking out against the city, the state of California and his own employer's harsh response to COVID-19.
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“I was a community leader and I was vilified just for speaking out against the school's closure,” Say said. “I was demonized because I cared about keeping the school open. For me, it became an unlivable place.”
Say is set to retire from Levi's in 2022 after a 23-year career with the company.
“San Francisco is the most aggressively conformist place you can imagine,” she says. “It's not inclusive. It's not logical. And it's not progressive.”
She claims she was “canceled” by corporate America and denied executive-level positions that would reflect her superior qualifications.
Say moved to Colorado and founded performance apparel company XX-XY Athletics in March.
She's now a fighter against wokeism: the very name of her company is an act of rebellion against the idea that femininity exists on some kind of spectrum.
“The elites are adopting these crazy far-left positions to assuage their guilt for having so much money and privilege.”
“The message is that there is an empirical truth. Biology is truth,” Say said. “In fact, it's very simple: there is XX and there is XY. We can distort the truth as much as we want with our words, but at the end of the day, the truth is that gender is binary.”
She believes a confluence of factors has led to the distortion of long-held truths and the embrace of extremist ideologies that pushed her out of Levi's and alienated customers from Harley-Davidson, Bud Light and other respected American brands.
“The elites are taking on these crazy, far-left positions to assuage their guilt for having so much money and privilege,” she said.
Jennifer Sey won the U.S. Artistic Gymnastics Championship in 1986. She also competed in the Goodwill Games in Moscow that same year. (XX-XY Athletics/Jennifer Say)
For example, corporate executives pay lip service to public education, but “they all send their kids to $60,000-a-year private schools.”
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“The other thing is, these companies now have a Gen Z workforce that comes from woke education systems and woke universities who have grown up in safe environments and who want their pronouns to be known,” she added.
Executives fear clashing with the mob around them, stoking their anger on social media, and jeopardizing the wealth, privileges and perks they pretend to reject.
“In corporate America, the patients run the psychiatric hospitals,” Say says.
Red, white and blue Harley Davidson motorcycles in Chicago, Illinois (Photo by Joe Soam/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) (Joe Soam/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Say's career within the “woke bubble” of a powerful corporate culture, and his current struggle against it, gives him unique insight into Harley-Davidson's recent problems.
Hurley's CEO, Mr. Zeitz, has become a global celebrity by turning discount Puma sneakers into a global fashion brand, mingling with the rich and famous, starting a sailing racing team, opening a museum named after himself in South Africa and counting the likes of Richard Branson as friends.
Critics charged that he had little in common with Harley-Davidson customers and seemed to lose sight of the Americana that is key to the motorcycle brand's global popularity.
Levi's has likewise gained worldwide fame.
Jennifer Say founded XX-XY Athletics in March 2024. She said the message of the brand name is “that empirical truth exists. Biology is real.” (XX-XY Athletics)
“People value these brands because they represent the best of American values,” Say said. “They represent freedom, individualism, progress and democracy.”
She believes Harley Davidson represents “rugged masculinity, individualism and living life on your own terms.”
Say competed in the world gymnastics championships at the 1986 Goodwill Games in Moscow, where she saw the power of the American brand.
She bought 20 pairs of jeans at Macy's to take home to trade with Soviet and other foreign athletes: On the black market in Moscow in the 1980s, she says, a pair of Levi's classic 501 jeans could go for $1,000 a pair.
“Levi's jeans represent freedom and progress,” she said.
Today's “progressive” politics is progressive in name only, she said.
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“What they call progressive is actually very regressive,” she said. “It's driven by elitist hypocrites. I can't even stand to be around them anymore.”
