In case you haven’t gotten the memo yet, these are trying political times. We walk on eggshells at any gathering where a contrary opinion could be lurking. Facebook friends are purged for their political views. Bridge players keep searching for something else to call a “trump card.” As if all that is not enough to sufficiently stress us out, we now move into full boycott mode. A cigar in this ideological climate is no longer just a cigar. It is a political statement, and before you blow its smoke, you need to know the leanings and campaign contributions of the company that made it.
With some products, this boycott stuff can get pretty confusing. Beer drinkers, for example, would be well advised to hire a fulltime researcher before ordering a brew. Yuengling has been off the bar for progressives since its billionaire owner endorsed Trump last summer. Trumpsters, on the other hand, went cold turkey on Budweiser after the company ran a Super Bowl commercial heralding the values of immigration. Tough news for liberals: it won’t be Miller Time for at least four years. Pete Coors, chairman of Miller Coors, not only endorsed Trump but held several fundraisers for him, a fact, of course, that also rules out Coors, Molson, Blue Moon and a half dozen of the company’s other labels.
If you are a beer-drinking Trump hater, you might consider switching to the hard stuff, specifically Glenfiddich Scotch. The Donald started a Glenfiddich boycott a number of years ago after the company that makes it named a Trump nemesis as “Scot of the Year.” The president claimed the Glenfiddich people “rigged” their Scot of the Year selection in retaliation for Trump for having exported his own whisky to Scotland. Needless to say, you won’t find any self-respecting progressives sipping from a glass of Trump Single Malt Scotch. If it were the only alcoholic beverage left on earth, AA membership would suddenly soar.
While the left was hit hard by Trump-linked beer, the right is struggling to find a good cup of conservative coffee. Starbucks incurred Trumpian wrath when it announced recently that it would hire 10,000 refugees. A boycott was launched immediately. Starbucks has also been hit from the left for having stores in Trump Tower. But the real coffee battles are coming from the right. They had already been boycotting Dunkin’ Donuts for removing “Merry Christmas” from their cups, and Caribou because an Islamic bank owns most of the company.
So far, as a liberal, I am personally fine with all of this. I’ve been sober for 37 years and, therefore, have no need to ascertain the ideology of the hops I no longer drink. I do, however, love my politically correct Starbucks, always purchased outside of Trump Tower. I also see the potential decaffeination of the Trump crowd as the most encouraging political development in more than a year.
But keeping up with all the boycotts can be complicated, and it doesn’t help that many of them fluctuate more than the stock market. In early February, for example, anti-Trump consumers were supposed to avoid shopping at Nordstrom because it carried Ivanka’s clothing line. Then the company announced it was not renewing her brand because it hadn’t been selling well. Throw in a well-publicized statement Nordstrom sent its immigrant employees praising their service, and you have the basis for an early morning presidential tweet blasting Nordstrom. You’d think Nordstrom’s would now be safe for liberal shoppers, but no dice. It still has a few Ivanka items from last season available online, so it remains on the left’s do-not-shop list. Nordstrom, and for slightly different reasons, Macy’s are currently being boycotted by both Trump supporters and resistors. Maybe that’s what the president meant when he said he would bring America together again.
If this sounds too confusing, there is an app for that, at least for liberals. It’s called, sensibly enough, “Boycott Trump,” and it is a pretty handy guide for avoiding such Trump-friendly places as: Applebee’s, AT&T, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Buffalo Bills, Capitol One Bank, Cheetos (for reasons other than their orangeness), Chicago Cubs, Dr. Pepper, Ford, J. C Penney, Jell-O, Kanye West, McDonald’s, NASCAR, New England Patriots, Panasonic, Pepsi, Sears, and hundreds more.
There is, alas, one anti-Trump campaign I have not joined. There is a move to pressure Sirius XM Satellite Radio to shut down its conservative Patriot channel which carries programming from most of the big names in right wing broadcasting: Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and the whole lineup of Breitbart characters. Although I agree that the racist “White Nationalism” spewed by these folks is vile, I also find the use of economic power to silence any media operation disdainful. Sirius has a liberal channel as a counterbalance called “Progress.” Should those opinions be booted off the air if conservatives can garner enough petition signatures?
A key ingredient of authoritarianism is silencing contrary thoughts. It is an approach to governing that has been more pronounced in our country since January 21 than it ever has been, at least in my lifetime. It is a far less than elegant move for the resistance to adopt a tactic we are resisting. So I will do my best to avoid Trump-friendly beverages, restaurants, football teams, banks and department stores, but I will pass on trying to shut down a radio station for broadcasting despicable content. A far better remedy for such speech is, as former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “more speech, not enforced silence.” That’s exactly what White Nationalism deserves from us: more speech. May we never stop talking about its despicable evil.