Vote the Assholes Out
Browse Patagonia’s online shop, and you’ll find T-shirts condemning Big Oil, encouraging people to vote with planet Earth in mind, and declaring that when it comes to wilderness, Americans must “defend it or lose it.” But the company is getting far more attention for a cheeky, hidden message that appears only on the tag of a limited-edition pair of shorts, in tiny print.
The message: “VOTE THE ASSHOLES OUT.”
The label, which went viral on Twitter, was only the latest Trump-era call to action from Patagonia. The company has responded to the federal government’s environmental rollbacks with increasingly vocal campaigns to protect the country’s public lands — and yes, it says the four-word message applies to the president, along with other politicians who refuse to act on climate change.
Patagonia isn’t alone. As more Americans have taken up hiking, hunting and other forms of outdoor recreation, retailers selling tents, snowboards and weather-resistant jackets have become more politically active over the last few years.
That doesn’t usually take the shape of a profanity-laced political statement. For many companies, it has meant pushing state and federal officials to support greater use of public lands for recreation, as opposed to extractive uses such as mining, logging, and oil and gas drilling.
“Around four or five years ago, the discussion started to change pretty dramatically,” said Jordan Smith, director of the Institute of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism at Utah State University.
The National Park Service reported 327 million visits last year, a number that has steadily risen. And as the outdoor recreation industry has grown, so has its political muscle. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calculated in 2018 that outdoor recreation is a $374-billion business that accounts for 2% of the U.S. economy. An industry trade group thinks the numbers are even bigger, estimating in 2017 that outdoor recreation supports 7.6 million jobs and drives $887 billion in annual consumer spending.
The Trump administration’s policies, meanwhile, have threatened public lands and waters. Over the last four years, the federal government has sought to expand the footprint of oil and gas drilling and has done little to confront the climate crisis, which threatens beloved outdoor spaces through rising temperatures, diminished snowpack and more destructive fires than ever before.
To learn more please visit: The story behind that Patagonia tag, and how the Trump era changed outdoor recreation