Tag Archives: TargetStores

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Daily Broadside | Rule #13: Pick Target, Freeze It, Personalize It, and Polarize It.

Hey, you don’t suppose THIS is why Target has gone full-on trans-maniac, do you?

In the wake of the controversy surrounding Target’s debut of pro-transgender clothing lines aimed at children, it has since been revealed that one of the senior executives in the company’s marketing department also holds a position with a pro-transgender advocacy group.

According to Fox News, the vice president of brand marketing for Target, Carlos Saavedra, is also a treasurer for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). GLSEN has pushed for schools across the country to enact policies that forbid parents from being made aware of their childrens’ gender identities at school, as well as pushing schools to include explicitly sexual books in their libraries.

GLSEN has written out its preferred policy for schools’ treatment of the parents of students, declaring that “[the local education agency] shall ensure that all personally identifiable and medical information relating to transgender and nonbinary students is kept confidential.”

“Staff or educators shall not disclose any information that may reveal a student’s gender identity to others, including parents or guardian,” the policy continues. “This disclosure must be discussed with the student, prior to any action.”

[…]

“Target donates to GLSEN every year, with the most recent one being roughly $2.1 million.”

So who’s making policy in our state-run schools — education professionals or sexual deviants? The answer is clear: it’s a collaboration with sexual deviants who “prefer” that parents don’t know what’s going on with their children. So grade schools, middle schools and high schools conspire with a Leftist activist organization to cut off children from those directly responsible for their well being — the parents.

Listen, GLSEN, I don’t care what you “prefer.” You have no standing to say what is or isn’t right for my child. You certainly have no right to conspire to keep me from knowing what is happening to my child. Get your filthy hands away from them, you sick perverts.

My friends, if you spend money at Target on the latest thing that has your attention because it is priced just right and is convenient to get to, be aware that you are financially supporting a gay activist organization that seeks to supplant your parental rights. And if you don’t have kids in public schools, have a heart for others and stop shopping there.

As I’ve written many times on this blog, all you NEED is a little air, water, food and maybe some shelter and a change of clothes. You don’t NEED to spend your money at Target. You don’t NEED to get that latest shiny object at Target. If they are going to cater to the gay lobby, then let the gay lobby and their allies shop there.

Stop giving Target money.

Target has lost more than $10billion in market capitalization in the span of 10 days – as it continues to face backlash for Pride-themed merchandise.

Prior to the controversy – which stems over a LGBTQ-geared clothing campaign that touts ‘tuck-friendly’ bathing suits and pro-trans T-shirts for kids – Target shares were trading at $160.96, giving the retailer a market valuation of roughly $74.3billion.

By the time The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) closed Friday, the blue-chip stock was trading at $138.93 – marking a market valuation of 64,2billion, and loss of $10.1billion.

The sum, moreover, stands as the superstore’s lowest market value in an entire year – all achieved in a matter of days as customers swear off its products in response.

Of course, if you do that, you’ll be labeled a literal “terrorist.”

You’ll buy what we tell you to buy, dammit!

I don’t think the answer is to “boycott” Target. A “boycott” sounds temporary. The answer is to ABANDON Target. Forget they exist. Walk away. As Jesus said about the Pharisees, “Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit” (Matthew 15:14).

Here’s what I wrote almost a month ago when Tucker Carlson was fired and Bud Light was cratering.

If you want to know how to participate in the “culture wars”, ABANDON those companies that cater to the Left. Let them know by your ABSENCE that you won’t give them money to ruin your children and our society by promoting men who pretend to be women or that if they have such contempt for you that they’d rather cut the top-rated cable host in all of television than cater to your interests that you’ll go find your news somewhere else.

(See my recommendation for an alternative news source at the end of this post.)

It’s not easy to do this, but it’s not impossible, either. Unfortunately, there is an endless supply of companies that are adopting the woke attitude. The latest is a company that thousands of Christians defended when the work mob came for them in 2012.

“We have a problem,” wrote Joey Mannarino, a conservative host in highlighting Chick-fil-A’s prior announcement, on Twitter Tuesday morning. “Chick-Fil-A just hired a VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This is bad. Very bad. I don’t want to have to boycott. Are we going to have to boycott?”

He also wrote: “The Left is going crazy again over the Chick-fil-A boycott that conservatives are considering. They’re mad because we’ve FINALLY gotten effective at boycotts. Any company that is pushing the trans stuff on our kids or the DEI stuff, we are going to pick the worst offenders.”

“So Chick-fil-A has a diversity, equity and inclusion division,” added columnist Todd Starnes on Tuesday. “Well, that explains the fried cauliflower sandwiches and kale salad.”

Chick-Fil-A has apparently had a VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion since 2020, but conservatives have just discovered the fact. I’m not sure I want to boycott the fast-food chain, especially since they’re not actively promoting the indoctrination of children or celebrating Pride Month by pushing rainbow chicken in our faces. But the fact that they have a DIE officer means the fox is in the hen house and it might be only a matter of time.

In the last book he wrote before he died, “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals” Saul Alinsky lays out 13 “rules” on how to successfully run a movement for change. The last of these rules is, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.”

When we talk about boycotts, we’re talking about institutions, not people. It’s harder to bring down an institution because an institution is impervious to personal attacks. And conservatives, especially conservative Christians, are loathe to engage in the politics of personal destruction.

However, there’s an interesting angle here. Robby Starbuck makes the observation that what made the Bud Light boycott work is the personal side of associating with the brand.

“Men like us made it socially unacceptable for other men to be seen with a Bud Light.” He says that women are doing the same thing with Target right now. Perhaps we’ve stumbled on a way to apply Alinsky’s rule to the Left.

Regardless, don’t allow these companies to influence you with their cheap prices and even cheaper products. It’s a way to take a stand against the Marxists who’ve infiltrated every institution at almost every level across the country.

It will be a long term effort.

  • I subscribe to and highly recommend The Epoch Times as an alternative news source to Fox News, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, or any other online or cable outlet.
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Daily Broadside | It’s Not Easy to Avoid Woke Companies; They’re Everywhere Now

A couple of quick hits before the main topic. In 1985 I saw Tina Turner perform at Wembley Arena in London. She died yesterday at the age of 83. Never a big fan of her music but she was a rock icon from my youth and it was a moment.

Ron DeSantis (pronounced, by Ron himself, as “DeeSantis”, not “DehSantis”) has officially joined the presidential race. As I wrote yesterday, I’d vote for him or Trump if either were the Republican nominee. Anyone other than Resident Flounder, or whomever the Democrats shove to the front.

Meanwhile, after the Bud Light fiasco, which is still ongoing, it’s come to light in rapid succession that a number of other brands across other categories are also diving deeply into LBGTQ+ promotions. Nike, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Mattel, Delta, Ben & Jerry’s, Converse, Coors, Google, NFL, Pepsi, Patagonia, Gillette, and now, Target — and many, many others — have embraced the LBGTQ+ agenda as proud supporters.

The latest, Target, is facing strong backlash for selling women’s bathing suits with “tuckable” space for men who pretend to be women.

Target has recently come under fire for its efforts to pander to the transgender community. Target stores nationwide recently unveiled their “Pride collection,” featuring a range of merchandise and clothing with trans-friendly slogans and books pushing radical leftist gender ideology. What makes this particularly troubling is the clothes, merchandise, and books are not exclusively aimed at adults but also young children and babies. They aren’t tucked away in a hard to find section either; these displays are prominently showcased at the front of Target stores.

Target, you may know already, has been pandering to the LGBTQ community for years. However, in the aftermath of the Bud Light controversy, Target started receiving enough backlash that the company held an emergency meeting last week. Several store locations, primarily in rural southern areas, have now been instructed to relocate and downsize their Pride sections—specifically to avoid a “Bud Light situation.”

“I think given the current situation with Bud Light, the company is terrified of a Bud Light situation,” a Target insider told Fox News Digital.

They should be terrified. But the truth is that a lot of these companies think this is a good business stratetgy, including Target’s CEO, Brian Cornell.

“I think those are just good business decisions, and it’s the right thing for society, and it’s the great thing for our brand,” Cornell said. “The things we’ve done from a DE&I [diversity, equity, and inclusion] standpoint, it’s adding value.”

He added, “It’s helping us drive sales, it’s building greater engagement with both our teams and our guests, and those are just the right things for our business today.”

That it’s a “great thing for [the] brand” is debatable and I can tell you that it is not “the right thing for society.” I’m with John Hinderaker over at Power Line who is also puzzled by the enthusastic embrace of radical sexual politics by our corporate class.

But “trans” clothing is not exactly the path to mass market success. How many women’s swimsuits with extra crotch room is Target going to sell? Six or seven?

More recently, leaks from Target indicate that the company is scrambling to contain the tsunami of disgust that its “Pride” campaign has generated.

More broadly, Hinderaker asks the question I’ve been asking: Why?

So, what is going on here? I don’t get it. We obviously are not dealing with traditional assumptions about corporate behavior. These companies are not appealing to a substantial customer segment. They evidently don’t mind incurring the puzzlement, if not wrath, of much of their customer base. They can’t possibly be profit maximizing, as economists tell us they do, and ought to do.

Some say that companies are being dominated by left-leaning HR and marketing departments. Maybe so. But HR departments don’t make decisions of this sort, and the normal assumption is that marketing departments are trying to market. That is, to maximize sales. These days, that doesn’t seem to be the case. And the worst offenders are often CEOs who have been hired as PR face men, not nuts and bolts managers.

He doesn’t get it, and neither do I. But something I recently read (and I can’t find it) said that big business needs loans, and loans come from banks. Banks are owned by larger entities that are big enough to withhold loans from companies that are not sufficiently “woke.” I have no idea if it’s true, but it sounds plausible.

So the suggestion is that companies prove their woke cred so they will be eligible for bank loans when they need them. Of course, many companies don’t need bank loans and are self-sufficient, which leaves the question, again: why?

With the number of big brand names embracing radical leftist gender nonsense, it may be difficult to boycott them all. Difficult, but not impossible. I’ve said it before, but we live with such abundance that we’ve been lulled into thinking that many of our “wants” are somehow “needs.” The truth is that we have very few non-negotiable needs. All we need is a little food, water, air and shelter. Maybe some clothes and transportation. Everything else is discretionary.

But living in a consumer culture, we are in the habit of mistaking wants for needs. Once we get that straightened out, it should be a no brainer to boycott Target and its merchandise. It shouldn’t be hard to ignore Bud Light. You really can do without a daily Starbucks.

Am I suggesting that you boycott them all? Yes — but I’m a realist. It will be hard to avoid conducting monetary transactions with companies that support woke ideologies in some form or another. Perhaps you simply be selective when you have the opportunity. I no longer buy Gillette razors, even though I had no complaints about the blades themselves (other than the cost!). But when they led with their “Toxic Masculinity” ad in 2019, thousands of men stopped buying their blades and it hurt their bottom line.

As Hinderaker says, leaving the gigantic companies presents an opportunity to support the little guys.

It is noteworthy that it is big business–Budweiser, Target, Nike and so on–that goes off the deep end. It is highly unlikely that the small businesses in your town are jumping on the “trans” bandwagon, or other leftist fads. They still care about their customers, and their owners are not so rich as to scorn profit. 

Once you’ve boycotted the big guys, shop local.