Professor Jacobson at the blog Legal Insurrection has a great point about the overwhelming success of yesterday’s Chick-Fil-A Appreciation day:
Conservatives are very good at buycotts, but very bad at boycotts.
There have been attempts by some conservative and religious groups to boycott various businesses over political issues. But I can’t think of one, at least not recently, that has caught on.
Or that has been as nasty, vicious and sustained as the boycotts and intimidation of businesses run by Color of Change, The “Human Rights Campaign,” Media Matters, the anti-Israel BDS movement, and other left wing groups.
I’m not saying there haven’t been conservatives who have tried to run nasty and vicious boycotts, but doing so on a regular and sustained basis is the province of the left. And the left does it so much better.
Today proves, however, that conservatives can do buycotts quite well.
The only place I differ is that I don’t think boycotts work very well at all nationally.. What the Left does isn’t boycotts. There is a planned “Kiss In” at Chick-Fil’As on August 3. That’s not a boycott. That is a trespass where some (a handful really) will be occupied, pictures taken, public kisses taken and photographed and no product will be bought. Will they be able to sustain that? I doubt most proponents of gay marriage care enough to sustain the hatred and will trickle back to Chick-Fil-A over time. In any case, I’m sure there are many people like me, who like Chick-Fil-A but don’t go there often, who have been reminded how great the food is (especially the Peach Milkshake) and will patronize it more often.
The only place I differ is that I don’t think boycotts work very well at all.
Historically, they have worked, but now you have a population that’s too fractured and a buying public that doesn’t usually connect its purchases with its morals. That, and the population is simply so vast, that it would he hard to coordinate anyway. We’ve gone from a country of under three million–a period where boycotts did work–to a nation of over three hundred million. At that point, I don’t think they scale too well. No, where boycotts work best now is with individual products, where a greater focus can be brought to bear.
Also, it maybe something about the individualistic nature of our culture.
Yeah. I was thinking “nationally”, I should qualify that statement because I’ve seen local boycotts work.
Boycotts can work pretty well at a local level and for specific stores of national chains. For example, it was discovered in Wichita, KS that a particular Quicktrip (gas station of choice in the midwest/south) was selling dirty magazines. Normally this would be an issue but it’s location was in an upper class bedroom community and the families asked the manager to pull the magazines. The manager did not pull the magazines and was actually bit belligerent in his response to the customers so a boycott was started. The franchises replaced manager (not sure about the owner) within 2 months and the magazines were pulled.
So, it can work.
I’m sure there were a lot of reasons folks participated in the “Day of Chicken.” I imagine the majority saw it as a way to push back on governments (the mayors of Chicago, Boston and San Francisco) threatening to punish a businessman for openly expressing a belief in the Bible. Many were likely less concerned about the religious impact but are fed up with government trying to pick winners and losers in business based on ideological positions. Some probably bought a sandwich as a statement on the debasement of culture that is attempting to redefine a thousands year old institution. And a few folks probably went just to be a part of the crowd.
In spite of what you think of anyone’s reasons for waiting in line to buy some fast food we all have to agree it was a massive, impressive display of humanity. The real significance of yesterday are the sheer numbers of people involved. And look how quickly the masses were assembled and how polite and orderly they were! OWS organizers spent months (a year?) planning and still their movement was often chaotic, repulsive, violent.
There is a new group of people who are awake. They have a network of communicators who can quickly and effectively organize them; Facebook, e-mail, twitter, Rush, Beck, Huckabee, Ingrahm, Church, Hannity, Wilkow. My wife heard about it on Facebook from a mom she met through our Church and within an hour she had the car loaded with the Little Fireflies and some of their friends.
If I were on the left what would scare me most about this, and Cruz in Texas and anti-military movies tanking and CNN ratings plummeting and newspaper subscribers vanishing… is how quickly it’s all happening and how much fun those getting involved are having. My wife came home with a car full of kids who have no interest in politics but were anxious to watch the evening news to see the coverage of the event they participated in.
We’re not going away and there are many, many more of us than the Left imagined. Even more disconcerting to their cause; there are many more of us than we imagined.
You know, I never thought about how much peaceful fun I’ve been having as the Silent Majority becomes more vocal. Thanks for the heads-up on that, Rufus!
Sadly, the left is not afraid, brazenly and continually digging in their heels, stuck on stupid and twice on dumb as Chuck D once said in a Mellencamp song.
I too have thoroughly enjoyed the uprising. It’s doubly fun because the peaceful, mature behavior of participants makes it even harder for the opposition to lash out.
You know they’re furious but they have no outlet to vent their rage. It’s like Rosa Parks. Nobody wins converts hating on a peaceful old woman.
Good point with the difference between this and OWS.
On a side note, I listen to a morning sports radio show, The Junkies. They talked about how an intern, clueless as to what was going on at Chick-Fil-A went out to lunch, saw the huge crowd, just kinda shrugged his shoulders, bought his food and because it was so crowded took it back to work to eat.
Where he was promptly accosted by his fellow co-workers for his “endorsement” of traditional marriage, or more specifically hating gay people (which buying Chick-Fil-A means I guess). Oh and how everyone laughed and laughed at this kid’s treatment because he didn’t know what he was doing. See totalitarianism is funny!
The College campus writ large.
I thought Bob Owen wrote a good post on this topic:
http://www.bob-owens.com/2012/08/the-cluck-heard-round-the-world/
(Owen’s post, if you’re too lazy to click on the link…)
Clearly, this is more than a “buycott” over gay marriage. If the smattering of people I’ve talked to are representative, homosexuality is a side issue.
This strikes a much deeper, more foundational chord.
The massive crowd reaction locally and nationwide are driven by a loathing of arrogant politicians like those in Boston, New York, Chicago and San Francisco who feel they have the power and the authority to tell a businessman like Dan Cathy what personal opinions he can and cannot hold if he wants to do business in “their” towns.
They trampled on his religious beliefs. They trampled on his freedom of speech. They attempted to deny him and his franchisees the rights to start small businesses, merely because a free American dared to share what he believed.
When Gage’s columns of Regulars marched out of Boston after midnight on April 19, 1775, neither they nor the tens of thousands of colonists in the surrounding community thought of themselves as anything other than Englishmen. After shots rang out at Lexington Green, then the North Bridge, and Meriam’s Corner, and skirmishes turned into a rolling gunbattle, there was a tectonic shift. They were no longer Englishmen, but Patriots and Regulars. History records the rest.
Presumably not a man that mustered that morning on either side that April morning wanted war, but a series of events unfolded in such a way as to trigger a war out of a series of powder alarms (British attempts at gun control) that had been bloodless to that point.
Students of history know that there are rarely singular triggers to world-changing events.
We have over the past decades been slouching towards a crisis point in this nation. I’ll leave it for future historians to find fault and place the blame, but the momentum towards disintegration has been apparent and accelerating for some time.
I smirk, thinking about those that are reading this incredulously, thinking, “is this rube trying to tell us that we’re going to launch a civil war over chicken?!?! What a dunce!”
They are capable of only seeing isolated events and individual threads, not the tapestry of tyranny that has turned a simple protest buying of chicken sandwiches and waffle fries into a fed-up Republic’s sudden self-awareness.
The greatest trick that Hollywood, the lying liberal media and the Democrat Party was able to conjure was the illusion of their power and our isolation. As tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Americans are realizing in a simple act of conscious commerce today and this evening, we are legion. There are far more of us than there are of them, and in that realization, our power grows, and our desire to give up even a fraction more of our rights, shrinks.
Excellent writing. I appreciated his view that homosexuality was a side issue.
I disagree with the contention that Conservatives are bad at boycotts. A great example is culture. Look what’s happening. Where is Air America? How is CurrentTV doing? How did the string of anti-military movies Hollywood has made since 9-11 do at the box office?
Conservatives can be very ideological with where they spend their time and money.
Those things you mentioned didn’t fail because of boycots they failed because they weren’t good, liberals didn’t watch or listen to them either.
The majority of the country consider themselves conservative, they just don’t consider themselves necessarially republican.
Funny you mention that Outlaw… I had a similar thought about the media when I read the original post. I’m not boycotting CNN. I used to watch it all the time. I just grew tired of it and gradually switched to FOXNews — which I’ve also drifted away from now that I have these Interwebs and “the Twitter” to get my news.
And yet Rosy O’Donnell and Bill Maher continue on. They aren’t any good either, but still garner a place to spew their crap!
Bill Maher, et al. That’s why subsidies are often the enemy of quality.
I agree with your second statement.
Regarding the first, true there were not official boycotts, but there were specific campaigns by Conservative outlets, talk radio, FoxNews, Breitbart and other web-sites… to make folks aware that there were sucker punches in those films, and/or the actors and actresses were defaming the troops with statements outside of the movie.
Some of the trailers, “Grace is Gone” come to mind, could lead one to think the movie was aimed at military families. It used to be that’s all the information most of us had to go on before buying a ticket. Now, when word gets out in advance that there is something anti-Conservative in a film many Conservatives stay away. It’s not given the specific, official term, “boycott,” but what’s the difference?
Let’s take “The Last Temptation of Christ” and “The Passion of the Christ” as examples. In the first word was circulated in mostly Catholic circles that the film was offensive to Catholicism. In the latter word was circulated in Christian circles that the film was fair-minded to Christianity. Many stayed away from the first and many flocked to the second. I have never seen either movie (and I’ve heard others, like Porvaznik, state “Temptation” was actually good and accurate), but they are good examples of how Conservatives boycott and buycott equally effectively.
I practice personal boycotts, when necessary and practical (thought practical is the tough part). For example, Little Caesar’s Pizza is the closest pizza joint to our neighborhood; but, because the owner’s are big-time donors to the Democrat party, I stay away.
The Tea Party did a good job at boycotting liberal policies and helped in electing conservative candidates.
I think the Left really thought this was going to be a watershed moment for the gay marriage movement. What it ended up being was a watershed moment for freedom of opinion and civil discourse.
I suspect quite a few of the people who went to Chick-Fil-A yesterday were supporters of gay marriage. What they don’t support, is trying to punish people for having a different opinion. That’s what the Left will never understand about America: we are civilized enough to disagree without sh*tting on each other. They’re not.
With all due respect, JimmyC, I think it’s more about not wanting the government to punish business. I’m sure a lot of Americans are fine with punishing businesses based on myriad reasons, including religion for some. Remember slumping sales at stores that changed “Christmas” to “Holiday?” I’m not going to pay for anything Bill Maher or a host of other entertainers whom I disagree with are associated with.
It’s government as a Nanny we resent. I don’t smoke, nor do I drink sugar-sweetened drinks or McDonald’s food. But that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with government banning those things. I really don’t want a world with one more McDonalds restaurant, let alone hundreds built annually, but I’m O.K. with that if that’s what my neighbors want.
I don’t like to eat in a restaurant full of cigarette smoke, but I’m O.K. with some restaurants and some folks wanting that.
I’m O.K. with Rahm Emmanuel not eating at Chik-fil-a because management supports traditional marriage. I’m not O.K. with Rahm Emmanuel hinting that he’ll make it hard for the restaurant to get permits to operate in Chicago.
People want to be free to make their own choices and they want a level playing field to present those choices.
The Tea Party started when Rick Santelli complained about the unfairness of the bailouts. Why did some get government largess while others did not?
Americans care deeply about fairness, justice and choice. If you’ve ever spent time with a visiting European you’ve almost certainly encountered their amazement (and often disgust) at the number of choices in our stores.
President Obama does not want choice in the marketplace because he knows we will not choose what he knows is in our best interests.
Went to the location in Landmark Mall in Arlington, VA yesterday – we waited about 45 minutes, and the length of the line doubled while we were eating. This was around 7:30 last night. I don’t really care about gay marriage, one way or the other. But the idiotic fascism of the various mayors around the country puts me over the edge. Not to mention the incredibly short-sighted a**holes on the pro-gay marriage side who are celebrating this as if the end of free speech is somehow a good thing.
While the left bashes Chick-fil-A, the Baptist church is up in arms in Quincy, Ma about a Tilted Kilt opening up there.
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Church-seeks-to-stop-plans-for-The-Tilted-Kilt-Celtic-pub-known-for-buxom-waitresses—VIDEO-164707286.html
“Under Massachusetts law, a business that sells alcohol cannot be licensed within 500 feet of a school or church. Rev. Cannon has said that his church was never notified of the licensing of The Tilted Kilt, which would be located within the 500 feet from St. John the Baptist.”
Given the law regarding the location of such establishments, and the lack of notification, I see why they’re upset. If the pub falls within the 500′ radius, the law should be enforced.
I think he’s using that law as an excuse because I know of several bars within 500 feet of churches in the Boston/Cambridge area. Don’t forget, it’s an Irish town.
If the Catholic churches are anything like ours they have a tap with draught beer inside the school!
There may be grandfather clauses on those older bars/churches…
I’m of two minds here… part of me thinks the Church should get over it, on the other hand it is hard to use your property when a bars is so close and you’re trying to run a children’s night on a Friday/Sat. night. If the zoning law is there for a purpose then it should be enforced. If the town thinks its an illegitimate regulation then it should be repealed.
I get the feeling he’s invoking the law because of the nature of the business’ theme. The city’s licensing board didn’t seem to care and the location they want to move into was already an Outback Steakhouse that served alcohol. I’ve been to a Tilted Kilt in Clearwater and they’re mostly just an Applbees with better scenery.
The scenery is the thing though. The city shouldn’t have the reg if they don’t want to enforce. I have a feeling it would be used to limit church growth, but not restaurants named after erections within a stone’s throw of a family and religious institution
While not quite on topic, I wanted to mention that I have family members that work at a local CfA, and one told of a customer who called in saying that he wanted to support them, but could not make it that day to the restaurant. He gave them his credit card number and told them to use it to pay for the next person in line. Just wanted to share this.
awesome.
I think people are also really uninformed about what corporations support. I’m part of a project that’s working on making that information easy to find and use. Check out 2ndvote.com and the app that will be coming out soon if you are interested.
Thanks for the info Colleen! And the visit to Threedonia1