The Briefing Room
General Category => Politics/Government => Topic started by: mystery-ak on May 27, 2023, 02:14:27 pm
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May 27, 2023 8:45am EDT
Ted Cruz explains why a Target boycott won't work like Bud Light
'Conservatives have typically been not very good at boycotts,' Cruz said
By Chris Pandolfo FOXBusiness
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on the Friday episode of his podcast that does not think a boycott against Target will be as effective as the one against But Light.
On the "Verdict with Ted Cruz" podcast, the senator explained why it could be more difficult to launch a successful boycott against the department store chain, which has faced backlash over its June Pride month collection. Target annually features items catered to the LGBTQ+ community during Pride month, including "tuck friendly" bathing suits for transgender people and mugs that say "gender fluid." Conservatives have threatened to boycott the store over similar items in the children's section.
A Target insider told Fox News Digital that many locations, mostly in rural areas of the South, have relocated and tamped down Pride sections to avoid the kind of backlash Bud Light has received in recent weeks after using a transgender influencer in a promotional campaign.
An "emergency" meeting was held on May 19 to avoid what a Target insider called a "Bud Light situation," and the company said it had made the moves in response to threats some of its staff had received for the displays.
The Bud Light controversy and now two-month long nationwide boycott cost Anheuser-Busch nearly $19 billion with shares down 14% as sales tanked. Target has lost more than $9 billion in market value since mid-week last week, with shares down over 12.6%.
more
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/ted-cruz-explains-why-target-boycott-wont-work-bud-light
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He makes some interesting points, but we'll see what happens.
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Love ya Ted... But I think you're wrong.
Disney is being destroyed. Not merely by the Reedy Creek kerfuffle with DeSantis, their very product is undesirable - Folks ARE walking away. They've wrecked Star Wars, and Marvel... And even their kid oriented movies, which have been getting more dark and woke as the years go by. They haven't made a profitable movie in years, and their streaming service has tanked. They've been in a downward spiral for years, because the folks ain't buying their crap.
Like Bud, they held a public trust that they have destroyed.
Bud... Very same thing.
Target, if they have it easier, is because they have never ascended to that position of public trust - But even so, women expect a certain atmosphere and certain amenities in the workaday places where they (must) bring their children.
If a venue stops being a safe place for those kids, many women will stop being accepting and forgiving - There's a hard line there, right where it should be. Crossing that line is flirting with disaster.
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Love ya Ted... But I think you're wrong.
Disney is being destroyed. Not merely by the Reedy Creek kerfuffle with DeSantis, their very product is undesirable - Folks ARE walking away. They've wrecked Star Wars, and Marvel... And even their kid oriented movies, which have been getting more dark and woke as the years go by. They haven't made a profitable movie in years, and their streaming service has tanked. They've been in a downward spiral for years, because the folks ain't buying their crap.
Like Bud, they held a public trust that they have destroyed.
Bud... Very same thing.
Target, if they have it easier, is because they have never ascended to that position of public trust - But even so, women expect a certain atmosphere and certain amenities in the workaday places where they (must) bring their children.
If a venue stops being a safe place for those kids, many women will stop being accepting and forgiving - There's a hard line there, right where it should be. Crossing that line is flirting with disaster.
I would like to think that Target will be hit just as hard from a boycott as Bud.
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I would like to think that Target will be hit just as hard from a boycott as Bud.
The potential is to be hit even harder... But it's hard for me to gauge.
Buttweiser is guys. I get guys. This is somewhere between 'Oh Hell No' and 'Shut up and sing', with the only difference being whether it is repairable or not. Hard and fast: If it's 'Oh Hell No', they're done. Simple.
Women tend to have more complicated relationships... And tend to be more tolerant and forgiving. Women don't easily go to war, and they don't like to fight. I don't mean all that in a wishy-washy sense, but... it's complicated.
Don't get me wrong - If a woman is driven to war, she is terrible and formidable. I have often acclaimed Kipling's Female of the Species (https://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/hum100/female.html) as getting that exactly right - If she is standing between you and her cubs, she is wildly unpredictable and incredibly dangerous... She will stop at nothing.
Getting her there, over something like this... well that's a different story. :shrug:
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From theOP article:
Cruz said the controversies demonstrate how "big companies don't understand their customers and don't respect their customers." But he explained why a conservative boycott of Target is unlikely to be as successful as the one against Bud Light.
"Conservatives have typically been not very good at boycotts," Cruz said.
He cited Disney as an example, noting the company has come under fire by conservatives for opposing Florida's Parental Rights in Education law, which controversially banned classroom discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in K-3rd grade.
"You can be annoyed at Disney, but if your kids really want to go to Disney World, that can be hard to say no to. There're not a lot of alternatives. There's Six Flags, but Disney World is a pretty unique offering," Cruz said. "And for that matter, Disney's movies. I mean, look, there's only one Snow White or Cinderella, or Toy Story from Pixar. That is a difficult product for many people to give up permanently."
Cruz also discussed failed boycotts against the National Football League (NFL) and National Basketball Association (NBA), observing that they didn't last long because fans "really love going to sports events and cheering on their teams."
There's "success", and there's "success". The NFL certainly suffered several years' "dent", but how deep and permanent, I'm not sure. Disney has a fairly unique and diverse product/service/whatchamacallit. Their parks, resorts, and cruise line are doing pretty much OK; their movies are mostly bombing of late, though. Budweiser and Bud Lite are commodity products, i.e. there are very similar alternatives - Miller Lite, Coors Lite, regular Miller and Coors, PBR ... . And who knows, maybe some Budweiser and Bud Lite drinkers will step up to higher flavor beers.
One thing conservatives have done well with is buycotts, fighting Progs' boycott attempts. Chick-fil-A is probably the best known such buycott (in ~11 years, the South SF Bay went from zero to twelve CfA locations, and I'm pretty sure more are in the works). Hobby Lobby is another example, and the earliest buycott attempt I recall was Libs' attempt to boycott Wendy's because of founder Dave Thomas' Pro-Life views and donations.
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You want to really boycott Disney? Get your kids the books and get them to read the real story.
Ariel didn't end up the way Disney ended the movie, for one.
The richness of the imagination beats anything you will see on screen, unless you have trouble imagining anything.
Yes, I saw Snow White, Beauty and the Beast and others, but I had read the books before I saw the cartoons. The old ones have merit and generally played close to the story, but as time marched on, the shows became progressively less the original tools of teaching children that actions have consequences, and that life has risk, even if the Woodsman took care of the Big Bad Wolf.
The older versions of the movies if you must, from an era where Disney even went to War, not against the mores and traditions that made America great, but against the Axis powers. FInd the old books and get your kids to read. The batteries never give out.