Shopkeepers have called for a boycott of pro-Trump demonstrations in the hobby lobby


  • The hobby lobby is once again in hot water in response to a now-viral tweet showing a display of decorative letters at a location of a company that wrote “USA Vote Trump.”
  • The boycott is one of several attempts made against the company over the past decade in response to its controversial stance on everything from reproductive rights to coronavirus safety policy.
  • “I’m not a fan of the hobby lobby. I’ll never shop there.” Kari Breck, author of the viral tweet, told Business Insider. “I’m a Democrat. I hate the company.”
  • Some Twitter users pointed out that another customer might have arranged the letters instead of the employee.
  • The hobby lobby did not immediately respond to a request from business insiders for comment.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Shoppers are once again calling for a boycott of art-and-craft company Hobby Lobby, which is no stranger to controversy.

Rising #boycotthobby lobby efforts began picking up steam on social media on Sunday, in response to a viral tweet shared by user Kari Break. In the tweet – which now has more than 33,000 likes and more than 10,000 retweets – Breck shared an image of what the Hobby Lobby store allegedly did with a display of decorated letters arranging to read “USA Vote Trump”.

Break told Business Insider that she doesn’t actually take the photo, but pulled on a public post shared in the National Facebook group for the Lincoln Project, an organization started in 2019 by Republicans dedicated to preventing President Donald Trump’s re-election.

Break said he had no additional information on who arranged the exhibition, or at which store the photo was taken. Some other Twitter users noticed that the letters were free to circulate to customers – in other words, a customer could arrange a picture instead of an employee.

The Hobby Lobby did not immediately respond to a request from Business Insider for comment.

“I’m not a fan of the hobby lobby. I’ll never shop there.” Break told Business Insider. “I’m a Democrat. I hate the company.”

The call to boycott the craft store was quick on Twitter, as users shared the image with citations such as “Never set foot in the lobby and never”, with the hashtag #boycotthobby lobby.

The new boycott is the latest in a spate of booms against the company over the past decade.

In 2012, the company faced widespread scrutiny for denying employees access to contraceptive reproductive health care. A high-profile Supreme Court case later ruled in favor of the hobby lobby’s right to withhold reproductive benefits, determining whether private companies would be exempt from the law based on religious preferences.

The hobby lobby has also been the subject of boycotts in response to anti-Semitic comments and homophobic comments made by its openly self-serving Christian CEO and founder David Green. In 201 In, Green told a shopkeeper that the company could not take products for the Jewish holidays because it “does not care about your people”, a statement he later publicly apologized to the Anti-Defamation League.

Leela has also been noted as a major donor to the National Christian Foundation, an organization that promotes anti-LGBTQ efforts.

The Hobby Lobby took an extra turn in 2020 when it reopened stores in the states with an illegal store-to-home order, calling for the closure of non-essential businesses to stop the spread of coronavirus. Leela told employees in March that the decision to keep hobby lobby stores open was communicated to his wife, Barbara Green, through a message from God.

By April, the hobby lobby had officially shut down all stores and furlough employees, after many said they feared for their lives by being forced to continue working.