Consumers respond to troops: Get out!
Trump's crackdown on immigration protests isn't being well-received
We’re frequently reminded by talking heads that the U.S. is now a “service economy,” with its citizens working as drug store clerks and quick-oil-change artists instead of shoveling molten zinc or digging coal.
What’s not talked about quite as much — and apparently not recognized by many politicos — is that the U.S. is also a consumer economy, meaning that the money that drives the economy and keeps the debit charges flying comes not from the sale of large earth-moving machinery but from the sale of consumer goods — you know, food, clothing, digital gimmickry — nearly all of which are assembled overseas.
So the short translation of this is as follows: business should whenever possible avoid pissing off consumers. This adage is being proven quite decisively as 2025 rolls along on tank treads.
Consumers are launching boycotts of businesses that abandoned their public pledges to promote diversity, targeting such corporate icons as Target. Pepsi and other sugar-water dispensers are complaining that sales are down because many consumers, particularly those of a darker hue, are afraid to come out of their houses.
The word has gone out at several prominent publications to tone down coverage of Trumpian foibles, leaving editorial staffs turning to such pressing issues as polishing up their resumes. Meanwhile, circulation of legacy media outlets erodes while Reddit, TikTok and other consumer-produced products proliferate.
Some masks are OK, sometimes
Los Angeles awoke a few days ago to snipers on rooftops, boots on the ground and tanks waddling down the streets. Like most big cities today, LA is what’s now called “majority minority” and its denizens aren’t happy living with the constant threat of being kidnapped by masked men in vans and shipped to countries they’ve never visited. Retailers are slowly starving as consumers stop consuming and rely on whatever they have on hand.
Politicians who had been waffling — yes, you, Gov. Newsom — have now taken to the barricades, waving the banner of the moment, demanding the government leave them alone and go back to wherever it came from.
The grayheads at the Wall Street Journal are shocked — shocked! — that LA protesters are waving Mexican flags. They might want to remember that Los Angeles and most of the West were once part of Mexico and, in many ways, still are. That’s why the food there is better than in Des Moines anyday.
An heir to the Walmart fortune is sponsoring million-dollar ads criticizing the Trump takeover. Why would someone whose family fortune comes from the sweat of working people publicly take up their cause? Read that again and tell me how anyone can even ask such a thing.
Work with business leaders for awhile and you’ll find that most want to do what’s right as long as it doesn’t hurt the brand. Hypocrisy is not a bad thing if it causes one to say what needs to be said even if they don’t truly feel that way themselves. Harvard Business School grads may not much like rice and beans but will gladly say they do if it moves the bottom line.
After all, enacting and promoting DEI policies is usually good for business. Doing so successfully means having a staff that’s not only versed in DEI but is actually a living example of it. Would Hollywood want a white kid from Shaker Heights performing rap? Would Taco Bell want to hire Martha Stewart to revise its menu?
It’s almost treated as a secret that big business loves ethnic minorities for one very simple reason: they’re their customer base. Hispanics and Blacks tend to have larger families than their pale counterparts and thus buy more diapers, groceries and other basic consumables than their countrymen.
It would be a sad day at Procter & Gamble if Trump actually managed to round up 20 or 30 million people and banish them from the country, in other words.
What needs to be done? Everybody needs to get back to work. The troops need to go home, Congress needs to do its job and take control of passing necessary legislation, the courts need to convene and clear the calendar and the executive branch needs to calm down and go back to its usual boring fare of ribbon cuttings and dull speeches.
The voters, bless them, need to do their jobs too. Read a newspaper — a real one — and figure out what’s happening in their city, state and nation. A functioning democracy needs a literate and involved citizenry. Without it, we’re in for more foolishness and bullying behavior by people who should know better.