I don't think I'm being overly optimistic about the level of racism in this country to assert that most people - even most racists! - are not especially bothered by mild bits of representation and similar. Polls show support for DEI! Only a bunch of really intense online weirdos, and of course the current federal government, actually get upset about these things.
It's obvious what alienates more potential customers.
Yet what Cornell clearly missed is that Target is far less vulnerable to the effects of anti-“DEI” campaigns—now expanded by MAGA bigots to encompass even basic acknowledgments of marginalized communities by any institution—than the Bud Lights of America. As CNN Business has frequently pointed out, Target has a “more progressive base of customers” than many of the other companies harangued by conservatives. The daughters of Target’s founder wrote a letter to the Los Angeles Times in February decrying this caving by Target and other corporations as “undermining the very principles that have made their companies a success.” And the Trump administration’s own attacks on DEI have run into legal challenges.The article says that all companies got spooked by the Bud Light boycott, but that was really the exception not the rule. Conservatives boycott something about every week and it rarely takes off. They often call to boycott something they forgot they were already boycotting.
Notably, the companies that have recognized this and acted accordingly are doing much better these days. Costco leadership made a big show of rejecting an anti-DEI shareholder resolution introduced by a conservative think tank, and it has avoided the steep falls in store visits that have hit newly DEI-phobic chains like Target and Walmart. (However, it has also displeased liberal customers by refusing to stock mifepristone.) John Deere, which shed its DEI commitments last year after right-wing social media backlash, saw investors reject a similar resolution to Costco’s not long after Trump’s inauguration. Apple’s happy investors have also made their pro-DEI stance clear, even as CEO Tim Cook attempts to mollify an unhappy Trump with gold-plated gifts. As Axios found in a survey, companies that have stuck to their DEI policies (e.g., Delta Air Lines, Kroger, Patagonia) have better reputations with their employees and the broader public; Walmart, which initially cowed on diversity thanks to conservatives, has since joined Target in warning investors that opposition to DEI rollbacks could affect its sales.
It remains to be seen if other companies should also worry. Big Tech firms that have eagerly sucked up to Trump have the privilege of avoiding blowback, considering their monopolistic positions in their sectors. (The recent sell-offs in their stocks have more to do with jitters over poor A.I. investment returns than with anything else.) But there are rolling waves of boycotts planned for multiple other DEI-less companies, including actions against Uber and PepsiCo to be held next month. A Harris poll from February found that about 25 percent of respondents had stopped going to favored stores for moral reasons, a trend that was especially heightened among Democratic and Black Americans; a follow-up poll in March found that majorities of Gen Z, Black, and Latino respondents were joining such boycotts. Indeed, shoppers of color are persisting in the charge against corporate America’s turn away from underprivileged communities.
Target's other problem is that its stores - especially its urban locations - have evolved into giant CVSs, instead of being Tar-jays. No one really needs to shop in them.
Oh no don't destroy The Barrel
