On business boycotts

Multiple businesses and organizations are succumbing to the wokeness of the left, which is strange, given that roughly half the country voted for Trump in this past election. So why is this?

The Harvard Business Review published a 2020 article by the name of “How Do Consumers Feel When Companies Get Political?” In it, the authors note the following in a survey they performed: “That a company engaged in conservative or liberal political activity did not affect Republicans’ opinions of that company, but it did for Democrats.”

So, why are businesses succumbing to the wokeness of the left? The reason, or, at least one reason, seems to be because leftists will boycott businesses that are conservative, while conservatives tend not to boycott leftist businesses. Indeed, given the response to Gina Carano for not having her pronouns in her social media bio, it might be that some, though not all, leftists will not buy from businesses that are neither explicitly progressive nor explicitly conservative.

Given these points, if your business advances conservative values or does not advance leftist values, leftists are less likely to consume your products, and no impact will be had upon conservative consumers. But if your business advances progressive values, though this will have no impact upon conservative consumers, progressives are more likely to consume your products. So, what is a smart businessman to do? The wisest thing, if one is hoping to increase revenue, is to become explicitly progressive. I believe this is (one reason) why businesses are succumbing to the wokeness of the left.

How, then, do conservatives fight back? We must be willing to boycott businesses that are explicitly progressive. That will teach businesses that explicitly favoring the leftist agenda will not be financially advantageous. It will be better to remain politically neutral.

STEPHEN IRBY Fayetteville