A Harley-Davidson rider can be almost anyone, from an actual Hell's Angel to your kids' orthodontist. While the company has had its ups and downs, the bikes have long been an American icon for riders with "a passion for the motorcycle lifestyle, valuing freedom, adventure, and camaraderie," according to marketing experts Keegan-Edwards.
There's an image that goes along with the iconic bikes, and although I hardly need to tell you what it is, I will.
That image is: "Islamic terrorist."
Wait... wut?
In a video just made infamous on Wednesday by Robby Starbuck, Harley-Davidson president, CEO, and Chairman Jochen Zeitz says he became the "Taliban" when he became a board member and says his job is to "take on capitalism and redefine it."
"It’s important that we create new leadership," Zeitz said, "that we get others to join a new thinking of a more sustainable business, of a better business that is more equitable in every respect. Socially, environmentally, and financially."
(For what it's worth, German-born Zeitz came to Harley from luxury goods company Kering, where he chaired the Sustainability Committee.)
Customers have noticed Harley's descent into wokeism since Zeitz came on board in 2020, but comparing his role to the Taliban must count as a new low. The typical Harley-Davidson buyer is a middle-aged white male with an above-average income. Surely they want one of the major lifestyle purchases to be associated with the Taliban, right?
RIGHT?
Nah. David "Iowahawk" Burge, a man who knows more about American car culture than almost anyone else you're likely to meet, just called it the "Possibly single most hilarious corporate self-immolation of all time."
It is. And yet I've reached the point where I'm not sure I can laugh over the destruction of yet another American icon.
"Of course, Harley’s all about the sound and the smell of the Harley-Davidson, isn’t it?" Zeitz asked his audience. "So I became the Taliban again in a sustainable way. I decided to create a sustainability committee which I’m still chairing today."
Zeitz wants to use "the sound and the smell" of Harley-Davidson to push a leftwing DEI-ESG (environmental, social, and governance) agenda, which is like using the taste and nutrition of Gerber baby food to push the consumption of arsenic and strychnine.
Or to put it in more a visual way:
How I now view people that own and ride Harleys: pic.twitter.com/KUjY93sEbL
— RichardSloeWinslow (@SloeWinslow) August 14, 2024
Your typical Harley buyer is going to become like your typical Bud Light buyer: increasingly scarce, driven away by a brand whose management despises them and their values.
I'm forced to conclude that when Zeitz says he's going to change Harley-Davidson "in a sustainable way," he means he thinks he can milk the company for several years before the loss of market value and brand cachet forces the board to kick his can to the curb.
Ride on.
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