MAGA attacks fizzle as Harley stock rises: report

It was an ad campaign designed to sink an American legend with Trump-style accusations, but the legend appears to have endured.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports American motorcycle company Harley Davidson has weathered a hateful ad campaign by competing cycle company Indian Motorcycle.

“The attacks by Indian Motorcycle on Harley-Davidson Motor Company have generated a buzz, but not on Wall Street,” reports Sentinel writer Ricardo Torres. “Harley's stock price has increased since Indian, in late May, launched a campaign criticizing the Milwaukee-based motorcycle maker's executive hires and previous policies on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Harley's stock is up roughly 10 percent in the last month to about $25.70 per share.

“Investors aren’t paying attention to the social commentary and are instead waiting to see if Harley-Davidson's strategy of more offering affordable bikes will work, said Jaime Katz, who monitors Harley-Davidson for Morningstar.

Harley plans to relaunch the Sprint model later this year, complete with a starting price of about $6,000, and it will bring back the Sportster in 2027, which is expected to sell for about $10,000. These prices are not the kind of costs Harley customers are accustomed to from a factory paying American-worker-style wages. But Harley is leaning into lower priced cycles in response to “changing economic conditions” under Trump.

“We have a higher inflation environment for internal combustion engines; you have higher gas prices for your motorcycle; you have consumer sentiment that’s still declining; you have a stalled employment picture; you have services still outperforming goods; you have lower consumer savings,” Katz told the Sentinel.

To commemorate America’s 250^th anniversary, Harley also brought back a limited edition of the red, white and blue Super Glide model from 1971. The Sentinel reports the company is planning to build only 2,500 of them, on sale for about $15,000.

President Donald Trump’s supporters began denouncing Harley Davidson as “woke,” allegedly over the company’s unconfirmed DEI policies.

“The conservative influencers have spoken: Harley-Davidson—whose motorcycles helped create the paradigm of American masculinity —I s in fact woke and gay,” wrote The Bulwark’s Will Sommer earlier this year. Observing the numerous MAGA personalities and meme accounts denouncing the company, including actor Kevin Sorbo among others.

Sommer observed that “this campaign against the motorcycle giant stands out for the fact that Harley-Davidson doesn’t appear to have done anything terribly ‘woke.’”

Matt Laidlaw, who works at the “oldest, largest” Harley dealership in LA, claimed Indian Cycle “starting practicing some dirty marketing tactics” by “hiring political, social-media influencers to label Harley-Davidson as ‘Woke’ after Indian Cycle’s parent company, Polaris “ditched” the Indian brand.

The attacks ramped up after influencers had launched similar attacks against Cracker Barrel and Deere. In the months since these campaigns, however, MAGA sites themselves have been collapsing as fewer visitors click in—due to Trump’s low popularity and faltering health.

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