No. Just no.
You’ve likely seen the videos I will not link to here. Jerks throwing “manly” public tantrums is the latest in ice-bucket challenges for right-wing assholes. They’ve succeeded in intimidating capitulation from retailers rather than the summary execution now endorsed by MAGAs experiencing social discomfort.
Greg Sargent writes:
It is sometimes said that corporate America is a battleground in the culture wars. This has taken on ugly new meaning in the case of Target, which just announced that it will pull some LBGTQ-friendly merchandise from shelves after experiencing threats that affected its employees’ “sense of safety.”
Target’s surrender — which came after concerted attacks from MAGA media personalities — points to a bigger story: The anti-woke right is increasingly wielding heavy-handed tactics — including state power and violent threats — to block corporations from making their own decisions about how to adapt to social change. Though the right is losing this battle at large, it is innovating and having some success.
It’s unclear which items Target will pull. But right-wing figures had claimed Target was selling “tuck-friendly” swimwear — as part of its pride month collection — to kids. As the Daily Beast reports, those figures labeled Target CEO Brian Cornell a “pervert groomer” and even called for Republican attorneys general to investigate him. One Arizona man threatened disruptions at Target stores, warning that LGBTQ people are “not safe.”
AP fact-checks that bullshit allegation here.
Perhaps if Target’s kids’ clothes bore yellow-shades-only rainbow patches?
Worshippers of The Free Market and American symbology are a fickle lot. They stand foursquare behind their “values” only so long as theirs go culturally unchallenged. Lessers (even corporations now) who don’t know their places and who step onto what the right considers its cultural turf now face threats and intimidation from insecure reactionaries. Free Markets be damned. Real Americans™ have chosen moral panic as a lifestyle.
Discomfort subway passengers and right-wing extremists feel entitled to execute you. Discomfort customers and Target associates will politely ask you to leave and remove rainbow displays straight, white men find so threatening.
This is part of a trend. Right-wing activists and Republican politicians have repeatedly sought to make it harder for corporations to embrace liberal social change. Recently, for instance, the right opened fire on Bud Light for prominently sending a personalized beer can to a transgender influencer. The company put the executives behind the move on leave.
On another front, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis openly used government power to retaliate against Disney’s opposition to DeSantis’s “don’t say gay” law restricting classroom discussion of sex and gender. Other Republicans across the country are trying to use government power to limit investors from adopting social considerations in their investment decisions.
As in law, now in business it’s freedom for me but not for thee.