I wrote a VIP post yesterday about how I like shopping at Target. There’s a Walmart about the same distance from my house, but Target is better lit and less cluttered and I can find what I need without a hassle. My wife told me I was going to have to start boycotting Target, and it looks like a Target boycott is a thing now, with the company losing billions in market value.
John Hayward is behind a Target boycott but wants to go much further and “de-wokify” all of the woke corporations who’d rather cater to a tiny percentage of the population than the overwhelming majority of their customers.
I've been shopping at Target forever, but I can't go in there anymore. The moral hazard has become too great. I won't tell the kids of the future that I was unwilling to change my shopping habits to stand up for them. I won't be part of the deranged extremism Target is pushing.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
I don't think anyone should be mollified by little symbolic concessions Target makes in a desperate bid to avoid getting Bud Lighted. The extremists are still in control of the company. No heads have rolled. The company is signaling the fascists that its heart is still with them.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
Nothing less than complete de-wokification should be accepted by disgusted consumers: executives named and fired, apologies given, enraged woke boycotts that fizzle because there just aren't that many of them. You'll know a company means it when the Woke howl with outrage.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
If companies want to be run by tiny bands of extremist lunatics, then let that be their customer base. Let competitors step in to pick up the customer base they've chosen to abandon. We'll compare balance sheets at year-end and see which is the wiser business model.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
The people unhappy with this corporate fascism aren't even demanding their own values or politics be pushed by the companies, although that WILL start happening if this crap continues. People just want to shop without getting blasted by one-sided totalitarian political messaging.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
It's not that hard to provide such an experience, so competitors will step forward to do it… unless the heavy hand of government thumps down to stop them. That's the other end of the deal with fascism: private capital pushes Party ideology, and is favored by the Party in turn.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
That should be part of every GOP presidential campaign. Don't just tell people you sympathize with their disgust for totalitarian politics. Show them how government power and money are pushing this fascism, and vow to ruthlessly dismantle those mechanisms.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
The New Fascism isn't just a matter of a few left-wing operatives carefully working their way into corporate hierarchies over the years. Government power and coercive force are involved. Isolate it and promise to put a stop to it. Lead a charge instead of just complaining.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
Bring it all out into the open, both during your campaign and once you're in the White House. Use everything, from the bully pulpit to administrative power – and make sure you have reliable people running the bureaucracy when you go to war against totalitarianism.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
For the rest of us, this doesn't even feel like "boycotting" anymore. The Bud Light thing didn't really have that vibe. It's more like a turning away, a resistance if you will – a real one, not shrieking ninnies LARPing as a resistance. There is a quiet determination about it.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
You don't really see boycott leaders making demands. Nobody really expects corporations captured by woke fascism to make real changes to placate customers they obviously hold in contempt. These brands are becoming laughingstocks – and the Left fears humor above all.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
People might feel they're surrounded, that every Big Business is fusing with Big Government and its ruling totalitarian Party, and there's nowhere they can go to escape. You just get to pick the least politically obnoxious mega-corp to do business with at any given moment.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
That's always how totalitarians WANT you to feel. The whole point is to make the majority feel like a helpless minority, surrounded at every turn by apparatchiks, informants, political officers, and mandatory re-education. You're afraid to look for like-minded allies.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
One thing you can be certain of when you face a totalitarian enemy: you ARE the majority. They wouldn't be using those tactics if they didn't know their ideology was alien and repulsive to most people. They live in constant fear that the majority will awaken and flex its muscles.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
What you need to make this more than a constant twilight struggle against totalitarian adversaries is effective political representation. You need people who understand what's happening and will dismantle the coercive mechanisms that turn totalitarianism into fascism.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
It will take a bit of social engineering to get us back to the point where we aren't being socially engineered every time we buy a can of beer. It will take skilled and aggressive use of administrative power to dismantle the Administrative State, to pry Big Gov and Big Biz apart.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
That's what I'm looking for in the 2024 primaries. Meanwhile, we ought to vote against fascism with our dollars, those marvelous little green ballots we get to cast every day. If the companies want to throw off fascism and win us back, they know where to find us. /end
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 24, 2023
Good thread though I wish you had targeted ESG as well.
ESG is a huge driver of corporate wokeness. Corporate execs make a ton of money when their stock price goes up. Personal greed is driving much of this. ESG turns that greed into woke action.
— Don’t Be Ignorant (@dontbei) May 24, 2023
Here's how the local media in Minnesota is presenting the situation, it's pathetic how fully in the bag for the left the Minnesota media is at this point: https://t.co/uuoPtEnwTf
— Jeff A 🧙♂️ (@Mithrandir48) May 24, 2023
Stopped shopping at @Target back in 2016 when they allowed me in the women's bathroom.
— David Rosener (@DavidRosener) May 24, 2023
Remember that all of this is born of the “self esteem” movement, the all important need to have little Tyrone feel good about himself. It doesn’t end until we collectively DGAF about anyone’s feelings anymore…results matter, feelings don’t.
— Dem Words Explained (@FissileFinance) May 24, 2023
Dodgers groveled to the left. That’s capitulation. None of these companies have come close to this. They do not fear the right. They fear the left and grovel within a week to appease them. Target is lying and blaming customers for their failures. Bud light the same. Bankrupt them
— Bradley Lemoine (@Bradley_Lemoine) May 24, 2023
That seems to be true … they’re more afraid of facing backlash from a very vocal minority than the vast majority who’d like their experience free from politics. The Bud Light boycott really seems to have legs — maybe they are getting scared.
But Hayward makes a good point … heads have to roll. Heckler & Koch righted the ship; Target could too.
***
Related:
Report: Target leadership says it’s been ‘gut-wrenching’ to see what employees have confronted https://t.co/X0zK93LNEC
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) May 25, 2023
