Steve Kelley for May 26, 2023

How deep in the closet are those trying to ban rainbow coloured goods?

Nice to be able to shop at a store where you won’t run into bigots and hatemongers.

Politics is the arrow, humanity is the target. For many life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is still restricted.

Companies are free to do as they please when it comes to choosing their target customer base. And calling those that choose to shop elsewhere any of a long list of bigoted epithets will have easily predictable results.

They are being threatened by dangerous people coming into their stores. That’s not politics, that’s crime.

Target did not suspend this campaign because of sales since the majority of people support LGBTQ rights. They suspended it because the safety of their employees was at risk. Because that’s how the radical right works.

In 1935 Sinclair Lewis, America’s first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote a novel called It Can’t Happen Here, in which it did. Maybe teachers should be assigning this. Oh no…

Threaten, insult, suppress, intimidate, oppress. Demand conformity to our values. Crush all opposition. America will march to the tunes we allow.

At least the minute population of biological males who now identify as females, but still need a little extra space in their pants, can find solace at their local Target.

And the next distraction is…

When advertising blurs into pandering.

The Right sure spend a lot of time thinking about rainbows and drag queens. Hmmmm?

Target Corporation is partnering with a K-12 education group for which focuses on getting districts to adopt policies that will keep parents in the dark on their child’s in-school gender transition, providing sexually explicit books to schools for free, and integrating gender ideology at all levels of curriculum in public schools.

Those of the religious persuasion really need to follow Jesus teachings and just let people be themselves.

The ESG (no longer a conspiracy theory) element plays a big role in these poor decisions by AB and Target. There’s more than one organization that score corporations on ESG metrics, and at least one of them has some serious clout. They have money and lots of allies on many major corporate boards. So, when they threaten to out corporations who aren’t making the grade ESG-wise, they are taken seriously. They will do damage to your brand by pronouncing your corporation as ant-gay, anti-trans, misogynistic, climate killers, etc. They call for boycotts and organize an assault campaign to intimidate corporations into bending to their ideology. AB had a near perfect score but were warned that their marketing didn’t yet include a trans person, and they were expected to do something about it or their score would be downgraded. Target’s biggest investors (think board seats) include Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street and few others that are all in on the ESG scam. These marketing decisions aren’t done out of stupidity, they’re done because of outside influence and intimidation by idealogues who are well in the minority. This is no different than when Jesse Jackson and his thugs would threaten businesses into donating to his organization or giving regional distribution rights for Coca-Cola to a black-owned group (which happened to be led by his son). AB and Target are not my problem, nor are the people who choose to bring their business elsewhere. IMO the problem in this equation is the organized bullies who want THEIR agenda inserted into places where it doesn’t belong. I really wish those who make it their mission to insert politics into everything they can, would all just get a life and stop trying to direct others’ lives as they see fit.

Much the same happened in areas of the country when blacks were marketed to by major merchandisers.

Another BudLite moment.

If everyone is truly tired of the violent minority making all the rules, they really need to make sure they vote in every election, and vote against the Repubs that bring this nonsense to us.

Target is still going to sell those items, but they also have a duty to protect their staff from abuse and potential violence.

Such freedom of speech these right wingers are promoting. /s

I hope the cops were called about the destruction of displays; what bitter irony is forcing them to pay for all the items they destroyed.

Selling such, especially tuck it clothes, to kids isn’t right. Cost Target $9 billion, so far.

I shopped at a Target yesterday and it was absolutely full of shoppers. So much for the controversy.

The Republican Party has become the advocate for government-controlled markets. You know, communism.