Virtue signaling to me is Starbucks ordering police officers to leave because they allegedly scared a customer. In this case, it's a corporation making a sound business decision.
And since it appears Marriott hasn't even been asked yet to house these illegals, the article is fake news -- much ado about nothing.
I see the two cases as being very different.
If you take the Starbucks case as reported, they weren't "signalling" anything, they acted. There was an actual stimulation (the customer complaining) and action taken (asking the police to leave).
In the case of the hotels, the only stimulation was this anti-ICE, anti-deportation group, Sanctuary DMV, delivering a petition. They reacted to that by virtue signalling in public.
And, I don't see the article as Fake News since it presents a fairly complete story (accurately to my knowledge): Sanctuary DMV delivered petitions to various hotel chains, and they issued their spew.
ETA: A non-virtue signalling approach would have been to simply wait to see if they were actually asked to house any detainees, and then decline. Making the public statements is where the virtue signalling comes to the fore.
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