I’ll begin today with a basic political truth: one fundamental difference between conservatives and leftists is that the former tend to want smaller and less intrusive government, while the latter is more totalitarian in their desire for government. I don’t mean “totalitarian” in the Stalin/Mao sense of slaughtering tens of millions of people in order to achieve the goals of the new Five-Year Plan. (Although for at least a slice of the radical left, if that hobnailed boot fits, wear it!)
I mean “totalitarian” in the sense of its etymological core: government’s involvement in the totality of a citizen’s life. Including things like under what conditions we’ll allow you to start a business, and what we think is fair for you to pay your employees or get paid by your employer, and what kind of a lightbulb or toilet or soft drink that we think is good for you. Also, we’re going to make you subsidize the kind of tv we think you should watch, and the kind of radio we think you should listen to, and the kind of bathrooms that you and your children should be able to use.
That stuff.
Now on the one hand, I can understand why leftists bureaucrats would want that kind of power. If I were an ineffectual know-it-all who can’t get people to live like I want them to live, I might welcome the chance to bend them to my will through my exercise of governmental coercion.
What I can’t understand is why so many businesses seem to wade into political issues in ways that can’t possibly help them.
I’m not talking about companies whose identities are tied up with their politics. I understand, for example, why the moonbats at Ben and Jerry’s continually turn out goofy ice cream flavors like “Rocky Road to Socialized Health Care” or “Booker, Warren and Straw-beto” (formerly known as “Neapolitan”) or “Abort-your-Children Pistachio.” (Though I didn’t need to put on my wizard hat to predict how bad the sales would be for that last one.)
(Also, Booker, Warren and Straw-beto. Get it? Chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.) (I don’t usually like to return to a joke or explain it, but this may have been my most oblique Grandma Squanto reference yet, and I don’t want it to slip by, unnoticed.) (#wemustneverstopmockingher)
I even understand Nike, embracing semi-talented America-hating has-been QB Kapernick, since much of Nike’s target audience is a younger and fairly ethnically diverse demographic who don’t yet know what disastrous results leftist government inevitably creates.
That being said, the country is now pretty evenly divided politically, and as our politics become ever more heated, why would any company who wants a broad market for its products choose to wade into politics when it doesn’t need to?
Exhibit A is Gillette, which you may remember from their fall ad campaign arguing that men – i.e. the people who buy the vast majority of the razors in this country — suck. Their tagline – which I may be paraphrasing, but I am not making up – was “Everything masculine is toxic and terrible and you should be utterly ashamed of yourself if you have a Y chromosome. Now buy our razors you filthy, disgusting animal!” They also ran an ad featuring a dad showing his “transitioning female-to-male child” (you may know such a person by the archaic term “daughter”) how to shave!
When asked whether such an approach might not be as crazy as outhouse rodentia, CEO Gary Coombe blithely acknowledged that Gillette might lose a few of those male customers. (“But what about all of the biological females with heavy beards that we’ll gain as customers for life!” this idiot must have thought). But he was confident: the loss was “a price worth paying,” and he didn’t mind alienating some customers.
Make that “almost all” customers. Because oddly enough, this appeal doesn’t seem to have been super effective with the razor-buying demographic. To the tune of a loss of 5.24 billion (with a “B”) in the fourth quarter. When you compare that to their previous fourth quarter profit of almost 2 billion, their gender-bigoted leftist posturing has cost them over $7 billion.
To give you an idea of how much that is, it’s more than BOTH the mysterious CO and I earn – TOGETHER – over an entire year! I know – it boggles the mind.
How are we to respond to this news?
You know how. Say it with me: BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! Add dozens of more “HA”s and exclamation points, until lack of oxygen causes your vision to begin to gray out. Then recover, and repeat.
My favorite part of this story is watching Gillette trying to spin this gigantic loss. For example, the company has announced that they will be “shifting the spotlight from social issues to local heroes.”
Yes. The way the Nazis shifted focus in 1943 from getting massacred in the snow in Russia to running back toward Germany as fast as their frozen feet could carry them.
Okay, no column would be complete without a few more gems from the Biden camp over the last 10 days or so.
Gem A came from Joey Gaffes himself (hat tip to Nick DiPaolo), and is actually a two-fer. When he was in Keene New Hampshire, he talked about what a great state Vermont is. Not because he’s trying to start an inter-state rivalry between NH and VT.
Because he didn’t know where he was. He even mentioned what a great town Keene is. Which means that he knew what town he was in, but didn’t know what state that town was in.
His second beauty was when he couldn’t remember where he’d given an earlier talk. Here are his actual words, which I am not making up: “I just spoke at Dartmouth on health care, at the medical school — or not — I guess it wasn’t actually on the campus because people from the medical school were at the….” Then he paused, and said, “I want to be clear, I’m not going nuts. I’m not sure whether it was the medical school or where the hell I spoke. But it was on the campus.”
Yikes. “I’m not sure where the hell I was, or who I was talking to, or what day it was, or what state I was in. Also, on a totally unrelated note, I am not going nuts.”
As I may have mentioned before, I am not a professional, highly paid political expert. But I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if you ever find yourself insisting, “I am not going nuts!” you are not winning.
My other favorite Biden-related groaner came from his wife, Jill. When she was pitching her addle-minded mate to some lefties who are unhappy that he is not left enough, she admitted that they might not be satisfied with every one of his positions. But, she said, “You might just have to swallow and vote for Joe.”
Now regular readers know that I am nothing if not a high-class gentleman. I never wear white after Labor Day, I know which fork which goes with which course, and which wine goes with which entre. I’m wearing a full tux and tails as I write this in Stately Simpson Manor right now, and yes, I am also wearing spats. Thanks for asking.
Where was I? Oh yeah: my classiness is beyond question. Also beyond reproach.
That is why I’m not going to follow a quote about swallowing and voting for someone with an obvious Bill Clinton joke. Because I am far too dignified for that.
And also because I know that as soon as you read that quote, you already thought up a hilarious Clinton joke of your own.
But if you think about it, by reminding you of that quote, I inspired you to make that joke. So while I’ve kept my (white-gloved) hands clean, I would also like to take credit for that joke.
In other words, let’s agree that it’s a testimony to me, that I inspired you to make a hilarious joke, without actually having to come up with that joke myself.
This is as close to a no-show government job as I ever aspire to get!
Avenatti/Biden 2020!
Martin Simpson 