Ah, is there any better day than Super Bowl Sunday to discuss the growing confluence of mass politicization, mass marketing, and our ever more consuming culture? I’m all in for the Falcons, and for the record, I loathed the Patriots long before Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, and Patriots owner Robert Kraft came out for Trump. Which brings me to my point: we are entering a world in which everything will soon carry the tinge of political association. Good? Bad? Well, it will certainly be as ugly as Clint Eastwood and an empty chair.
My point of departure: The New York Times reported this
week on the plight of CEOs who were frantically seeking each other’s counsel
about how to respond to the de facto
Muslim ban issued by Donald Trump. To these titans of commerce, no option seemed
good. On the one hand, a statement
condemning the executive order risked inviting the retaliation of the thin-skinned
President. On the other, any accommodation – or even silence – would invite a
backlash among consumers and employees. The
consensus seemed to be that it was best to issue a mealy-mouthed statement that
daintily implied a modest lack of support for the ban and then pray that the
internet found other CEOs to pounce on.
A few CEOs, however, stood out from the pack. The
relentlessly social-minded Howard Schultz of Starbucks condemned Trump’s order,
and quite predictably, a “Boycott Starbucks” movement coursed through the
social media of Trump supporters. However, in a delightful turn, the liberal instagramoscenti spread word of the
boycott, and urged friends and followers to go order another venti iced skinny hazelnut macchiato
with an extra shot to show their support.
Welcome to the politicization of everything.
I heard that L.L.Bean’s granddaughter is a big Trump
supporter – cancel my duck boots!!! My knees wobble for the c
As a nation and as a culture, we are in the midst of
spinning counter-clockwise down the toilet bowl of radical division and animosity,
ever-accelerating as we near the drain. Perhaps our departure from our planet
as a species will be a curious inversion of Noah’s Ark, in which the Lord warns
of a flood, and Noah decides to pair off every homo sapien, one liberal with one conservative, and we will vanish
from earth because no self-respecting Democrat would dream of having sex with a
Trump voter.
As we all become more political aware and active – a good
thing – we realize that “hearting” a cool anti-Trump post has all the impact of
a Nerf ball heaved by a two-year-old. People are out there looking for ways to
actually participate in the dialog and the protest. People are marching, people
are calling their Congressional representatives, and people are going online
looking for ideas about how they can actually make a dent. People are
challenging others to join in.
So when people go online to look for ways to jump in, what
do they find? One of the first
suggestions they will encounter is a product boycott. Did you hear that Home
Depot’s CEO is a big Trump supporter?
Hey, I’ll drive the five extra minutes to go to Lowe’s. A boycott – if swelled to mass proportions by
social media – feels like something that would actually make a dent.
And, in so doing, we make a very significant cultural
jump.
Simply wearing your politics on your sleeve is nothing
new… people have been sporting campaign buttons and bumper stickers for
decades. We are declaring for a particular party in our news and information
choices (I’m a Chris Matthews for my main course with a soupçon of Stephen
Colbert -- just the monolog -- for dessert), and we already declare for
charities that lean heavily (please give to Planned Parenthood!). So it’s
really just a hop, skip, and a card scan to the next step.
The whiplash of the Muslim ban, and the political
preferences attributed to major corporations -- Uber and L.L.Bean on the one side, Neiman Marcus and Expedia on the other -- point toward a world
in which companies must be prepared to declare their political stance or risk
the consequences. The well-established tendency of Millennials to place far
greater emphasis on quality of life over being a slave to work would play into
this: they are far more likely to want to know the position their employer
takes on political and social issues than prior generations. Trump’s de facto Muslim ban forced CEOs to come
down on one side of the fence, the other, or – worst of all – split their
crotches by straddling.
What’s certain is that with this President launching
executive orders as frequently as if they were simply oversized tweets, we will
see more issues like this one.
With a galvanized citizenry looking for active and
tangible protest, the news of a company behaving badly – or well -- will fly
through cyberspace faster than the Millennium
Falcon on the Kessel Run. And, before we know it, more and more of the
things in our day to day lives will start to take on a red or blue hue. There
are already websites totally devoted to listing the companies that have
affiliations with Trump, and now you can download the Boycott Trump App.
Thank you, God! I now have a moral obligation to abandon
my long suffering New York Jets. Their owner – Woody Johnson – is a big Trump
supporter. And yes, that’s Johnson of
Johnson & Johnson – let’s ditch those Q-Tips, too.
Geez, if I were a marketing manager at Citibank now, I’d
slash my ad budget and hire an army of trolls to get the word out that Chase
was one of the big financial backers of Trump’s inauguration.
Yes, folks, this ain’t Woodstock, back in the sixties
when we tried to take on the military industrial complex armed only with
dystopian Barry McGuire lyrics. This time we hit America where it hurts: market
share.
It is, indeed, not too much a flight of fancy to imagine
some senior executive at a big box retailer realizing that there is a killing
to be made by selling “Red State Soap,” which promises that twenty-five cents
out of the price of every bar will go to the Republican National Committee. Miles or cash back? That’s so Twentieth Century.
Well, why not create the Tea Party Brand, and sell everything from onesies for your infant
to dentures for Gramma, all with the promise that 5% goes to elect
Trump-aligned candidates? Start looking for real estate for the Tea Party retail
store, where every single sale sends a donation to the Republican Party. Can’t
get to the mall? Visit www.teapartystore.com,
and sign up for TeaPartyPrime when you’re there.
Let’s not single out the Red Team… this is going to be a truly
bipartisan undertaking. Why in heaven’s name would I want to walk around with a
Levi’s logo on my butt when I can use that valuable ad space to communicate
that I am a card-carrying liberal? Somebody, please, start manufacturing a line
of clothing under the “American Liberal”
brand name -- with 10% of the purchase price going to Democratic candidates who
are vulnerable – and I will never be seen in a Banana Republic again. (Unless, of course, Donald Trump succeeds in
turning the United States into one.)
Before you know it, you’ll be charging all your expenses
on your special “Blue” American Express Card – the one that gives Democratic
Party Points for each dollar you spend, which you can redeem in contributions
to your favorite candidate. And don’t
even try to use that “Red State MasterCard” in Starbucks.
While some of this may seem a flight of fancy, one fact
is not. It was widely reported that traditional family get-togethers over the
recent Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays were significantly impacted by the
election, with family members cancelling plans to attend gatherings in homes
across the ideological spectrum. Within
families, politics are known.
In the vision I am casting of Future Schlock, we will lose the ability to say “no one is allowed
to talk politics at this dinner party.” These days, there’s no mystery about
where you stand. It’s all over your social media. I see what you “like,” I see
what you post, I see who you follow, and I see who follows you. I can tell whether you hang out with a swarm
of WASPs, a gaggle of L.L. Bean fleece, a pride of gays, or a murder of Jim Crows.
If it’s known that you voted for Trump, you
can expect your increasingly militant dinner party partners turn to you during
the smoked salmon appetizer and loudly ask you to explain your support for the
Muslim ban to rest of the guests.
With the politicization of everything, everything becomes
a symbol of whether we are “red” or “blue.” We will morph into a society in
which it becomes increasingly required that we publically declare our
affiliation, and required to defend our position. Could it possibly be that
this would make our electorate more educated? More informed? Perhaps just a
little more educated and wary the next time a bloviating demagogue announces
his candidacy?
Last week I came across a post written by a player in the
Washington think-tank world.
“Instead
of criticizing the other side, talk about what you both love: this country.
Express your concern and sorrow about what's going on, not your anger.
Encountering your anger brings out your opponents' aggressive defensiveness;
encountering your sadness may bring out their empathy.”
Unfortunately, the effect that this quote had on me was
pretty much the opposite of what the
author intended. It struck me as preternaturally naïve. Showing a Trump supporter “my sadness” is going
to “bring out their empathy?” May I introduce you to Steve Bannon, who joins us
directly from the ninth circle?
The Trump presidency is triggering one of the greatest
rifts in our history; no, not yet at the level of the Civil War, but it will
soon reach the fevered pitch of the battle for civil rights, the Vietnam
protests, and the Watergate scandal. The
period we have now entered is on that scale. Somebody take the threat level to Def
Con Two. Set the flux capacitor to May 4, 1970. Shields up… this is going to
get ugly, and if you try to sit on the fence, it’s probably just going to feel
like somebody is grabbing you by the private parts.
Will we ever heal?
Some people think that we’ve finally arrived at Yeats’
widening gyre, that the center cannot hold, and that all the centrifugal forces
pulling us further and further apart will overwhelm whatever gravity once held
us together. Others make the case that the country has made it through worse
divisions, and that we ultimately do come back together.
The experience of Vietnam is instructive. At the height
of the polarization caused by the Vietnam war, families were ripped apart by
intensely held beliefs. As Ed Asner bellowed to his son in the 1977 film The Gathering, “Are you planning on
skipping out of the country? Better start by getting the hell out of this
house!”
We heal, but there is a moment of reckoning first. Ultimately,
we came back together as a nation because one side was right and the other side
finally had to suck it up and admit that it was wrong. No, there should not be
slavery. No, we should not have racial segregation. No, the domino theory is unfounded
and wrong. No, Richard Nixon actually is a liar and a crook. No, we should not
demonize our LGBT community.
In a particularly poignant scene later in that same film,
Asner stands alone with his Scotch in his den, clutching a photograph of a son
who has lived for years in Canada. “You were right,” a weeping Asner hoarsely
whispers through the booze as he grips the photo. “You were right, and I was
wrong.”
There is no Kumbaya,
no Rodney King “can’t we all get along,” no “all you need is love” anthem that
is going to bring this country together.
It is going to take somebody finally realizing that they
have made a terrible error. Once upon a
time, when half the country thought that Vietnam was all about dominos and that
we had to fight the commies in Hanoi or they would show up in Honolulu, half of
the country had to stare into the face of the friends who were alienated
forever in the emotion of passionate and even violent disagreement, and say
“You were right, and I was wrong.”
What history does say, and what is encouraging, is that
in all of those great battles – and under the weight of incredible sacrifice –
the better angels of our nature ultimately prevailed.
So go out, boycott the bad companies, confront your
neighbors, and somebody please steal my
idea and start making tons of “American Liberal” jeans.
If the best way to win is to politicize everything, so be
it. If that raising of the stakes elevates awareness, and increases the level
of information possessed by the average voter, I’m good with that.
We are only going to come together once we prove that one
side was right, and the other was wrong.
And in that battle
– and only in that battle -- I am
desperately rooting for the true Patriots to win.
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