Goodyear Tire's Double Standard Earns a Presidential Call for a Boycott
President Trump has taken unlimited heat for his call for a boycott of Goodyear Tire over its policies prohibiting its workers from wearing MAGA-themed clothing at work. He was slammed for calling for a boycott of American business when he complains about the rampant "cancel culture" that has overtaken the Left. However, there was nothing wrong with what President Trump did. While people have focused intensely on the MAGA issue, Trump's call for a boycott was a powerful defense of free speech in this country, which is under attack by the Left.
To recap, a training slide at a Goodyear Tire diversity training session showed that Black Lives Matter paraphernalia was permitted at work while MAGA items were prohibited. An employee took a screenshot of this slide and all hell broke loose. President Trump immediately broke into the discussion and called for a boycott of Goodyear. This was the same exact thing that the Left did when the CEO of Goya Foods expressed support for President Trump. However, the President was pilloried for calling for the boycott of an American company.
This Is About a Fight for Freedom of Speech
There is nothing more American than the principle of the First Amendment. However, this is under attack from the Left, which thinks that it can dictate what people are able to say. When a fundamentally American principle is besieged, there is nothing wrong with using another American principle to restore it. Here, the principle being used to fight for the First Amendment is capitalism. People have the full right to vote their pocketbook and are under no obligation to patronize a business that undermines fundamentally American rights.
Big business has now become a captive of the Left. Cowed by the incessant threats of the "woke crowd," these companies have taken it upon themselves to act as their own thought police when it comes to their employees. People are losing their jobs for expressing themselves in violation of their right to free speech. The universities were once the front lines in the First Amendment battles. Now that the Left has completed its takeovers of college campuses, it is now moving on Corporate America. The irony is that a party that supports Socialists is staging a hostile takeover of Big Business.
People Can Support the Left But Not the Right at Work
President Trump is making a larger point than one simply aimed at protesting the banning of MAGA-themed clothing. His protest is about the double standard that American workers are facing. Paraphernalia associated with the Left is permitted while that of the Right is banned. Regardless of whether a company calls itself American, it should face the music when it is espousing principles that you would think would be more associated with Bolshevik regimes. Woke Capitalism is not really capitalism. Instead, it is a pale imitation that grifts onto business while espousing fascist principles.
While people are accusing President Trump of hypocrisy for what they call is a double standard, he is really fighting a battle for the soul of American capitalism. President Trump is merely subjecting American companies to the realities of capitalism when they act in un-American ways.
Moreover, President Trump was also decrying an outright double standard. Not only did Goodyear ban MAGA-clothing, but it also forbid anything that referenced Blue Lives Matter or All Lives Matter. There is no more of a double standard that prioritizes law-breaking protestors over law enforcement. The media will just tend to focus on the politics instead of the corporate hypocrisy. Ironically, this corporate edict is entirely political and apolitical all at once.
It remains to be seen what sort of effect President Trump's tweet will have on Goodyear Tire's sales. When the Left announced a boycott of Goya Foods, sales of its product skyrocketed. The boycott had no effect on the company. These boycotts often do not work, so President Trump's tweet may merely be an expression of his frustration and meant to point out the hypocrisy of the Left. Since business has become politicized by the Left, the Right needs to strike back and fight liberals at their own game.
Goodyear shows no sign of backing down from the mess of its own making. Since it is a public company, we should begin to know in a few months whether the boycott that President Trump called for is having an impact on its sales.