Actually, it probably was the “Blessed Day” part that bothered me the most.
Not that I had to hear it, but that an employee had to say it.
It’s times like that that I wish I had the ability to spontaneously combust. “Ahhrg! I’m burning with holy fire!!!”
Regardless of how you feel about it, I don’t think that stopping patronizing a sandwich shop is punishment.
There are a bunch of restaurants I used to go to on a regular basis, then I’d get bored, and never come back. Was I punishing them for not holding my attention?
I’ve worked at a couple of restaurants that went under due to bad management. It happens. We find other jobs, hopefully under better management.
I do find it very invigorating though, that many of the people in this thread are actually concerned about the well being of these low wage employees. It is something that I almost never see. Maybe we should take that momentum and work on some labor and wage regulations? (I say that as a current employer, but one who still remembers decades as an employee.)
I’m DC adjacent. DC has some decent places to eat so I wouldn’t open a shop there unless you have mad skills.
In NoVa suburbs, a great Philly Cheesesteak and sub shop will make us friends for life. You might even consider me an investor. I will not ask how you vote. Lesson learned.
First, the sandwich shop owner wasn’t boycotted because he voted for Trump. His vote wasn’t public information. He was boycotted because he voiced his support for Trump.
This is not new. I ran a business 25 years and I was in sales before that. The fact that you can lose a customer if you open your mouth and say the wrong thing is the first thing you learn, just like you can lose friends if you express opinions they find reprehensible.
Now I’ll admit the boycotts are more prominent these days and it is more common to see left-wingers boycotting conservative businesses than vice versa. It hate the term “cancel culture”, it’s a stupid right-wing talking point and I’m not repeating it.
No matter how politically divisive rhetoric was pre-Trump, the government still pretended, at least, to be working for all of us.
This is the first time that the federal government has openly declared that the members of the opposition party are the “enemy” and worked actively to implement policies that hurt them, the new limitations on the SALT deduction being a prime example. The President has interfered in the government contracts process to punish businesses because their owners spoke against him and he’s been known to relentlessly interfere in the contracts process in all arenas of the federal government to get business for his donors - again this hurts the competing businesses. This type of contract interference was at the heart of Dr. Rick Bright’s whistleblower complaint but the press was focused on the COVID related complaints and ignored what I thought was the more serious stuff. This brings direct harm to the owners of non-Trump donating companies and sends a clear message on what you have to do to succeed in America.
He’s used the presidential podium to promote products which takes market share from the companies that compete with those products. And he has recently pursued and fired career government employees whom he suspects of being Democrats or Hillary voters. He recently brought in extra staff to conduct these purges. Because all he has to do is utter the magic words about losing confidence.
The political calculations are different depending on whether your party is in power or out. The party not in power has to use the only weapon they have left, which is their united voice -and spending power. For some reason, the latter has always been a strong point of left. I guess it’s just that the conservatives tend to be poor and uneducated, spending all their disposable income on collectible crap, disaster prep kits, Alex Jones colloidal silver and crafting supplies.
So when conservatives threaten a boycott, everyone just laughs. But when liberals boycott, it works. Free markets, baby!
Well my POV was the owners can support what they support as long as the corporation does not. (for example, CFA corporate now directs charity money to Southern Poverty Law Center). Other people’s views on the matter may vary.
If you’re really on twitter you could do an experiment. Post a controversial opinion and see what happens. That would be interesting. Does rely on you having a wide enough audience, though.
That wasn’t what I said at all. But you don’t seem to get the point, either from me or QuickSilver, so not much point continuing. Maybe someday it’ll affect a community you’re in and then you’ll understand.
This is actually a very good point. The fact that the president has used his power in order to promote or to detract from businesses is far more powerful than any boycott.
I’ve almost never bought any Goya products, just haven’t really needed them. I probably would not have boycotted them simply for the owner’s statements.
But when Trump and his daughter started using my taxpayer dollars to advertise for Goya, well, that’s a bit different. I wish I had been a regular user of Goya products so that I could “punish” them by stopping.
To Cancel Culture Cancelers in this thread, is the fact of Trump advertising for a product enough to justify a call for a boycott, in your opinion?
I’m sure it’s my fault, being so unwilling to listen (your words). I’m sure an honest disagreement is just impossible - certainly not worth considering. Better just give up, then, rather than try for any sort of mutual understanding.
First is, I don’t want my money to be used for things I disagree with. They donate to causes I disagree with, and so I don’t want to support those causes. If chikfillet is profitable, then that means that the owners have money to give to causes that work against causes that I’m giving money to. Sounds counterproductive to me.
And then there is history and context. If it were always the case that it was just one minor owner that donated some of his wealth to a cause I didn’t like, then I wouldn’t see any reason to cut their support. If both the corporation and majority of the owners were supporting causes I deplore, then the fact that the corporation stopped supporting it isn’t enough, not for me.
Okay, maybe saying you’re not listening isn’t fair. But I feel like we’re going in circles at this point. Either cancel culture isn’t real, or it’s not a problem, or you don’t have any influence on it. Do you honestly think there’s any point continuing the discussion?
Maybe I’m being a bit too strident as well. “Cancel culture” is a thing. But I think it’s mostly reflective of progress – I think there’s always been some version of it, and it’s just that now the playing field is more level. Maybe some folks take it too far. But also, some folks whine about being criticized.
And more worrisome to me, some “moderates” are allying with some of the worst of the worst – whether it’s with misogynists, homophobes, and patriarchs to bash trans people, or with white supremacists in the name of free speech, or similar. That’s where I think this is scariest – it’s another lever for the wealthy and hateful to use to divide. Anonymous assholes dropping threats and such is bad, but that’s never going away as long as we have the internet.
Once again, who is the real enemy? The wealthy, the powerful, the influential, the bigoted… a group that’s mostly white, and mostly male, and mostly Western, and mostly “traditional”… those are the bad guys. Not liberals, not leftists, not “allies”. They’re always the bad guys, on this and every other issue.
I don’t think that the point of a debate is to get other people in that debate to change their minds, just to present your best argument, poke holes in and ask questions of others, and defend your own against holes and questions.
If you don’t think that someone is listening because they don’t change their mind, then I don’t think you will ever find a productive discussion.
If you have further arguments to present, or further questions to ask, then there is a point to continuing. If you do not, then obviously there is none.
I’m not looking to cancel Cancel Culture. I’m considering a way to make it more thoughtful rather than simply punitive. That said, Trump & Co. are a lightning rod and they never failed to soil everything they touch. At this point, the act of supporting this administration can only be recognized as a willful action to incite and bait those who stand in opposition. So yeah, Boycott Goya.
IMO (not so humble as it is based on a couple decades of customer service), punitive would be to call in to go orders and never pick them up.
Had you done that, I would have thought that that was a bit unfair. Just choosing a different place is just that.
I stopped shopping at Kroger when the one near my house stopped being open 24 hours. I liked stopping in after working second shift and getting my shopping done then. Then they started closing before I got off work, and I had to go to a different place.
So I stopped going to Kroger at all. And not just that Kroger, all Krogers. When I would be over at my parents’, and need to run out to get something real fast, I’d drive by Kroger to get to the 24 hour store, even though that Kroger was 24 hours.
Was I punishing them?
(this truly isn’t meant as a gotcha, it is meant as calibration)
I believe you made your decision not as part of a political or moral protest based on who Kroger supports but on the fact that they changed their store hours policy. Arguably, you may have taken it too far, as with Hardee’s. Understandable. Not punitive, IMO.