Boycott

For weeks, I’ve been seeing calls for a February 28 “economic blackout” spread across my social-media feed like dandelion tufts in the wind. From midnight on February 27 to the following midnight, anyone participating in the blackout should avoid spending money at Amazon, Walmart or Best Buy. Do not buy fast food or gas, says “the People’s Union,” which is organizing the blackout. Don’t shop at major retailers. If you have to shop, make it only for essentials, like food to feed your kids, and emergency supplies, and only do it at small, local businesses. It’s possible I could participate in the blackout by accident, but I wouldn’t ever do something like this willingly. Obviously, I’m not the target audience.

It’s Saturday. You just rolled out of your MyPillow Giza Dream sheets, spent a little extra time trimming your beard with your Jeremy’s Razor, and brewed yourself a fresh cup of MAGA Dark Roast COVFEFE. You call your best friend on your Patriot Mobile cellphone to shoot the breeze. Hell, it’s five o’clock somewhere. Go ahead and crack open an Ultra Right beer and waste away the afternoon. Welcome to life in the patriot economy — the parallel economy being developed by conservative entrepreneurs and investors. Or at least an exaggerated version of it. The idea of the patriot economy is fueled by two convictions. The first is that the right needs its own economic infrastructure so consumers aren’t forced to buy goods from “woke” corporations.

Nike. Ulta. Bud Light. Anthropologie. Target. My boycott list is growing larger by the day. For the record, I’m pretty darn good at shopping according to my values. I haven’t purchased a single Nike product since the company pulled a planned shoe line featuring the Betsy Ross American flag because anthem-kneeler Colin Kaepernick convinced them it was racist. I quickly pivoted to purchasing Adidas products instead. Well, that is until Adidas started advertising women’s swimsuits using male models. Sigh. This boycotting business can be tough, especially when it means forgoing otherwise quality products or paying a higher price for alternatives.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s May 2021 World edition.  Ron DeSantis was smeared by the media. He was never going to take it lying down. When 60 Minutes aired a laughably dishonest report implying he’d operated a pay-for-play vaccine distribution scheme in Florida, America’s most pugnacious governor fired back. The ‘smear merchants’ at CBS News were pushing ‘horse manure,’ he said. ‘That’s why nobody trusts corporate media. They are a disaster in what they are doing.’ That a major news outlet blatantly lied about a conservative governor isn’t surprising. Far more interesting is DeSantis’s choice of words there: ‘corporate media’. A departure, that.

A wave of woke corporatism has been sweeping America. The latest example comes courtesy of CEOs being forced to weigh in on SB-202, a Georgia bill to restructure mechanisms of the state’s voting procedures and laws. Spurred on by President Biden — a man seemingly guided by his Very Online chief of staff, who takes his cues from Twitter hashtag campaigns from the likes of the pedophile-enabling Lincoln Project — celebrities and companies are lining up to demand boycotts of Georgia, labeling the new law inhumane and an abuse of basic human rights. While appearing on CNBC, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey called SB-202 'unacceptable' and 'a step backward'. He said the company would work to remedy the legislation, through both public and private advocacy.

China’s various human rights abuses, their treatment of women, their savagery toward religious people and their chokehold on Taiwan and Hong Kong, has long made them a target for economic boycotts by Westerners. But executing a successful one is exceedingly difficult to achieve. In 2003, disappointed that the George W. Bush administration reaffirmed their ‘One China’ policy in regards to Taiwan, I launched my own boycott of Chinese goods. It was difficult but felt worthwhile to spend extra time looking for the ‘made in’ label on goods I was buying. And then I needed a shower curtain. I visited store after store and could not find one made anywhere except in China. I lived without a curtain for months before giving in and buying a Chinese-made one.