How Target can end the boycott and restore sanity to our politics

In the cool twilight on the last day of May, three families stood in a driveway near the base of Camelback Mountain in north Phoenix and said their goodbyes following a get-together.

Two couples live in the Phoenix suburbs, one on a farm in central Utah.

All have lots of kids. All like to shop at Target stores.

One mom, when asked if she is boycotting Target, said, “I’m done with them.” The other two families agreed and used the same word — “done.”

This was no organized boycott. There was no pre-planning. This was divorce, clean and sharp.

This is not 'a few fringe extremists'

I wish Target executives could have witnessed this discussion among people who have been their most loyal customers — people who once thought the store understood families with children like them.

They are not, as the president of the gay rights organization GLAAD calls the Target boycotters, “a few fringe extremists.”

They’re old-school moderates and conservatives who long ago made their peace with the “L,” “G” and “B” in the alternative alphabet. In fact, many of those LGB are today their heroes, fighting the culture wars on their behalf:

Bari Weiss, Douglas Murray, Andrew Sullivan, Dave Rubin, Kathleen Stock, Tammy Bruce — gays and lesbians who understand Enlightenment values and defend them.

These families deeply resent that corporate America has become the mouthpiece for some of the most fringe movements in American life — movements that cannot be fully engaged or debated because they brutally silence opposing views.

Families want neutrality, not politics

If Target and Budweiser are going to become the handmaidens of the extreme left, these families are going to exercise their prerogative with a single word.

“Done.”

It doesn’t have to end this way.

These families don’t expect unconditional surrender from the Minneapolis-based retailer.

Nor do they want to erase gay people in America. Many of those gay people are beloved family members and friends.

What they really want is neutral ground.

They want a little peace from the ax-wielding politics of those who aggressively march to take over the culture — be they left or right.

They don’t want to be bombarded with identity politics.

They balk at baby clothing and accessories adorned in rainbow symbols, as well as the kids’ books on transgenderism and gender fluidity all displayed at Target, as reported in The New York Times.

They know it’s Target’s right to sell whatever it wants, but it’s also their right to shop elsewhere, as they’ve reminded one another on social media.

There is a way out of this mess for Target

There is a solution to Target’s woes that have now cost the corporation $14 billion in market capitalization over the last two weeks and led JP Morgan on Thursday to downgrade its stock.

It’s a solution that comes from the Heartland where Target came into being. In fact, it came in the very same year Target was born — 1962.

By employing this solution, Target could not only win back customers lost in the current boycott, but it also could heroically lead the country back to a greater sense of political equilibrium and stability.

In 1962, the first Target store opened in Roseville, Minn., a suburb of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The concept was simple — combine fashion, quality and service with discount prices to set Target apart from other retail stores.

Those low prices inspired Minnesotans that same year to give the new store a French twist. They called it “Tarzhay.” They were making fun of themselves shopping in faux opulence.

Target would become beloved across the nation by suburbanites who don’t take themselves too seriously and who appreciate the store’s low prices, spacious aisles and clean look.

It comes from a guy called Milton Friedman

Also in 1962, an economist at the University of Chicago made his name nationally and internationally with the publication of what is today a classic in politics and economics: “Capitalism and Freedom.”

Milton Friedman, whom Washington Post columnist George Will would call “the most consequential public intellectual of the 20^th century,” introduced himself to the country and the world with this book based on lectures he delivered at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Ind., in the 1950s.

In it, Friedman outlined his philosophy that free market capitalism is essential to not only economic, but political freedom.

'Not giving up': Students walk out for LGBTQ+ rights

And relevant to the times we live in today, he warned that business could destroy that freedom if it veers from its core mission.

“Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible,” Friedman wrote.

“This (diversion of social responsibility) is a fundamentally subversive doctrine. If businessmen do have a social responsibility other than making maximum profits for stockholders, how are they to know what it is? Can self-selected private individuals decide what the social interest is?”

Business needs to get out of political activism

In the 21st century, international conglomerates and do-gooder corporate titans have decided to push a left-wing political agenda on climate, social justice and medical adventurism across the Western world.

They presume to wield power in a way that circumvents the elected leaders in democratic societies. And they have helped produce the most chaotic political climate most of us have known in our lifetime.

The evidence is now overwhelming and clear. Milton Friedman was right.

Business needs to get out of political activism. So does, for that matter, medicine and academia, law and journalism and all the fields and professions that have corrupted themselves in this modern quest for power.

Target can lead a return to professionalism and principled neutrality that once informed all of these fields by shedding the overt politics and selling us lampshades and headphones.

If they do, their customers all across the nation and in Phoenix will gladly return with their money and devotion.

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist with The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com. 

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How Target can win back loyal Arizona customers lost to boycott