President should stay in his lane on Goodyear flap

Last week, it was reported that Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. had, during a diversity training session, instructed employees to refrain from expressing themselves in the workplace with “forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of racial justice and equity issues.”

Expressions that were allowed were deemed “Acceptable.” They were positive endorsements of Black Lives Matter and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride.

The slogans and expressions that were “Unacceptable” were Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, MAGA and other politically affiliated slogans.

It didn’t take long before President Trump caught wind of it and by Wednesday morning the tweet was launched.

“Don’t buy GOODYEAR TIRES – They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS. Get better tires for far less! (This is what the Radical Left Democrats do. Two can play the same game, and we have to start playing it now!).”

Goodyear stock fell and quickly a #boycottGoodyear hashtag began making its way around social media.

During a media appearance Trump even suggested he’d replace the tires on the presidential limousine.

“I would swap them out, based on what I heard. We’ll see what happens,” the president explained. “Look, you’re going to have a lot of people not wanting to buy that product anymore.”

As the Associated Press reported, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Goodyear should explain it’s policy.

“If you can wear a Black Lives Matter hat, guess what, you should be able to wear a Blue Lives Matter one, too,”

McEnany said.

The president of the United States should not be using his position of power to drive American consumers away from legitimate businesses. It should never happen and especially not now as we’ve fallen off an economic cliff.

It is distasteful for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. to establish such a blatant double-standard in regard to which speech is allowed and which is not and consumers have every right to boycott the tire company or to patronize them but it is not the place of the president to meddle with a private business.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, hit the right tone when he tweeted that “It’s absolutely despicable that the president would call for a boycott of an American company, based in Akron, that employs thousands of U.S. workers.”

Goodyear is a great American company that has a more than 120-year history of business in Ohio.

People and businesses rely on the success of the company.

It is understandable that the president would be irked by the guidelines noted in the training but he is not an activist or a twitter warrior or a pundit. He is the president of the United States.

In 2010, in the midst of the great recession, President Obama told Americans, “When times are tough, you tighten your belts. … You don’t go buying a boat. … You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas …”

There was an uproar. Las Vegas needed tourist dollars and the president had intervened to keep it from happening.

President Obama was wrong then and President Trump is wrong now.

Cancel culture is bad enough without its tentacles emanating from the oval office.