This week, the fringe Right has been taking a victory lap while the fringe Left is sounding the alarm. It all started with Sydney Sweeney starring in a new American Eagle ad that played on a homophonic pun on “genes” and  “jeans”. Days later, as debate over Sweeney raged, Dunkin’ Donuts released an ad featuring Gavin Casalegno that also mentioned “genetics”.

It’s certainly striking that the cultural pendulum has swung from the woke-inflected Dylan Mulvaney–Bud Light campaign to these seemingly Right-coded ads from American Eagle and Dunkin’ Donuts. But the idea that Sydney Sweeney or Gavin Casalegno were involved in some kind of white supremacist dog-whistle is far-fetched. The layers of corporate bureaucracy behind a campaign featuring A-list celebrities make any deliberate dog-whistling implausible. American attitudes on race simply aren’t receptive to that kind of messaging — despite what race hustlers like Robin DiAngelo claim — and the sliver of the population that is receptive would be too small.

Just a few years back, CNN reported on a metric long used by social scientists as a proxy for racist attitudes. “When a Gallup poll first asked Americans about their views on marriage between Black and White people in 1958, only 4% approved,” the story noted. “Last year, that number was 94% — an all-time high – with 93% of Whites saying they approved.” The numbers don’t lie: whatever fringe ideologies are swirling online, the broad arc of American public opinion has moved decisively toward racial tolerance — and it’s that consensus, not extremism, that defines the mainstream.

The likeliest theory seems to be that Sweeney was playing with the massively viral years-long discourse about whether she’s “mid”. And Casalegno’s ad is just about Dunkin’ hiring a guy with a “golden” tan to sell its “Golden Refresher” drink. While it’s odd for two major corporate ad campaigns to talk about genetics in the same week — let alone one — Occam’s razor is always a safe bet.

Conspiracy theories aside, the mainstream Right is taking a victory lap over the apparent death of corporate Mulvaney-ism. It’s true that both Sydney Sweeney and Gavin Casalegno are straight, white, and absent any overt progressive signalling in their respective ads. The aesthetic is unmistakably pre-woke — a return to using sex appeal to sell jeans and coffee, rather than politics.

In that sense, while the Left may be wrong to cry dog-whistle, they’re not wrong to detect a shift. A recent poll found that men and women under 30 have swung sharply to the Right since 2023. That generational drift may help explain why sources with direct knowledge told TMZ: “This is yet another example of how social media is just not reflective of real life,” the company said. “The absurd response from some corners of the internet is absolutely not reflective of how American Eagle’s customers feel.”

Daily Wire journalist Megan Basham went further, arguing that the company’s statement wasn’t just damage control but a clear signal of “a bigger vibe shift” than the ad itself. Rather than apologise, American Eagle effectively told its critics to get lost, signalling a newfound boldness among corporations to reject woke orthodoxy and cater instead to a changing customer base.

What this all makes clear is that we are no longer living in the cultural moment of 2020. The corporate Mulvaney-ism that once sought to straddle woke progressivism and mass-market appeal is dying. In its place is a recalibration toward a more conventional, even conservative, brand of mainstream appeal — one that reflects evolving cultural attitudes and political realignments, particularly among younger Americans. Whether this signals a lasting transformation or a fleeting backlash remains to be seen, but the shift is undeniable.

Correction: a previous version of this article included a statement attributed to an American Eagle representative. This has since been replaced with information from sources with direct knowledge of the matter. 

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Emily Jashinsky is UnHerd‘s Washington correspondent.

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