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How Conservatives Can Avoid the 'Nice Guys Finish Last' Trap
Townhall.com ^ | April 10, 2021 | Nicholas Waddy

Posted on 04/10/2021 6:27:28 AM PDT by Kaslin

Left-wingers have always had a knack for activism. In the '60s and '70s, they were the ones flooding the streets, protesting civil rights violations and the Vietnam War. Now, they're conjuring Twitter mobs out of thin air, organizing boycotts galore, and hectoring politicians, celebrities, corporate CEOs, and even their family members, friends, and neighbors, in response to any and all perceived violations of wokeness. Leftists seem always to be poised on a hair-trigger, ready to pounce on their enemies, and when they do...God help whomever bears the brunt of their searing wrath.

Often, we hear the argument on the right: why can't we be as organized, as shrill, and as relentless as the Left? Why are corporate boards and advertisers, for instance, seemingly unafraid of offending us, when they blanch in terror at the first sight of a progressive with an upraised fist?

The answer, as usual, is staring us in the face: no one is afraid of us because we aren't scary in the least. Conservatives are mild-mannered (by and large), law-abiding, church-going, family-oriented, and usually polite and deferential. Heck, most of us even have jobs, which makes throwing rotten produce, or hurling digital invective, at those we find disagreeable difficult to reconcile with our busy schedules.

President Trump recently encouraged conservatives, and not for the first time, to follow the Left's playbook and begin boycotting companies that publicly condemned Georgia's new voting law. Let Coke, Delta, and Major League Baseball have it! “Don’t go back to their products until they relent.”

And, in response, you guessed it: Coke, Delta, and baseball didn't bat an eyelash. In fact, the MLB Commissioner wasted no time in moving the All-Star game from Atlanta to Denver. Meanwhile, have Coke, Delta, or Major League Baseball's profits withered overnight? Hardly. In fact, we have no reason to suppose even that President Trump has given up his beloved Diet Coke, which for him is the elixir of life.

The lesson here? Conservatives will simply never be as ruthless as progressives. We don't believe in the politicization of every consumer decision. We don't seethe with rage in our spare time, waiting to be told who and what to hate next. Besides which, we're not naive enough to believe that, if Coke, Delta, and Major League Baseball occasionally knuckle under to leftist intimidation, that makes Pepsi, or United, or the NFL any better. Give them time: they'll disappoint us with their cravenness too.

The answer, I suggest, is to organize conservatives as much as possible not around protests, boycotts, and upsurges of outrage, as around positive demonstrations of solidarity with those rare — very rare! — politicians, celebrities, corporations, organizations, and ordinary citizens who make themselves conspicuous by their decency, their rationality, and their patriotism. If the symbol of leftism is the clenched fist, then why not make the symbol of conservatism the high five?

The most successful demonstration of such constructive conservative “activism” in recent years was the failed leftist boycott of Goya Foods, and the much more effective right-wing “buycott” that followed it. When Goya CEO Robert Unanue, a Hispanic, triggered liberals with his praise of President Trump in July 2020, they vowed to bring his company to its knees. Conservatives, however, rallied, and many, including me, bought Goya products for the first time in our lives. Goya sales soared.

Americans of all stripes already know that leftists can be powerful, implacable, and vicious enemies. There's no need for conservatives to demonstrate the same malice and fanaticism. Instead, let's show that we can be loyal and generous friends to those who have the courage to stand up to the Left's incessant tirades and bullying.

After all, as Ben Franklin once reminded us: you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: boycott; buycott; woke
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1 posted on 04/10/2021 6:27:28 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

DNC Brownshirts are fascists and klansmen and terrorists. They carried out thousands of bombings in the 1970s.

Don’t be like Democrat “activists”.


2 posted on 04/10/2021 6:38:31 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Lean on Joe Biden to follow Donald Trump's example and donate his annual salary to charity. )
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To: Kaslin

conservatives need a conservative billionaire to hire conservative protesters


3 posted on 04/10/2021 6:44:23 AM PDT by mjp ((pro-{God, reality, reason, egoism, individualism, natural rights, limited government, capitalism}))
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To: Kaslin

Sorry, you are WRONG.

It is time we Boycott! The conservatives have never been focused enough or had a leader to direct our wrath.

Trump is that leader. No we do not have to boycott everything like the left; but to punish Coke, Delta, and MLB will let everyone know be trampled on and there will be consequences. Of course there was overnight outcome. It is a boycott! Conservative do not spend hundreds of dollars changing tickets for flights they booked weeks ago. They will not throw away tickets to BLM games they already bought (MLB already has the money); and if every conservative stopped buying Coke, the company will not feel it immediately.

Boycotts take time.

If anything; the problem is Conservative Naysayers willing to throw in the towel before a movement can get started.


4 posted on 04/10/2021 6:48:26 AM PDT by CoastWatcher
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To: Kaslin

.


5 posted on 04/10/2021 6:52:55 AM PDT by sauropod (Chance favors the prepared mind.)
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To: Kaslin

The Goya buycott didn’t stop the company from ousting Unanue and affirming their support of everything that hurts America.

As a Christian I should not believe this, but my experience makes it clear: love is nice, but fear works. Until businesses and politicians are scared s**tless of us, we will never succeed in getting the country back.


6 posted on 04/10/2021 6:55:06 AM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: Kaslin

“then why not make the symbol of conservatism the high five?”

I *hate* the high five.

As with so much of our “popular culture,” it arose from the very worst of American society: the drug dealers and users of the black slums.

From there, the path leads to black musicians, black athletes, white musicians and athletes, and the entertainment media at large.

It’s annoying as hell that black junkies can’t come up with another “secret handshake” without the whole country having to imitate it.

It’s easy to trace as far back as the Andrews Sisters in the 1940s:

If you want to shake my hand
like they do it in Harlem,
Stick your hand right out and shout,
“Gimme some skin, my friend!”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIFN13-a1iA


7 posted on 04/10/2021 6:55:38 AM PDT by dsc (Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.)
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To: Kaslin

The left is lead by Control Freaks, with an army of fearful scardy cats behind them.

The right are Freedom Lovers, with an army of Freedom Lovers behind them.

But Freedom Lovers, by their nature, won’t be herded and stampeded. We’d rather be left alone.


8 posted on 04/10/2021 6:56:10 AM PDT by Basket_of_Deplorables (Convention Of States is our only hope now!)
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To: Kaslin
We tried that here in Denver last year.

We held a "Back the Blue" rally downtown and the cops stood by while Antifa and BLM attacked the Conservatives as they left the stage.

A month later we held another Conservative rally and that is when Lee Keltner was murdered (on camera) by a 9news "Security guard", after having been targeted and set up.

Nothing short of direct and immediate consequence will solve this.

9 posted on 04/10/2021 6:56:12 AM PDT by G Larry (Write in Donald J. Trump on ALL MLB All-Star Ballots!!!!!)
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To: Kaslin

Easy, quit being nice and working with RATs.


10 posted on 04/10/2021 6:56:36 AM PDT by dforest (RATS are criminals and frauds. Hide anything that belongs to you. They will steal it.)
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To: Kaslin
Bad example in the article: The Left got to the board and the GOYA CEO's wings have been clipped and GOYA is now singing the tune of the Left. The Left is relentless and the Right will have to be equally relentless and confrontational IMO.
11 posted on 04/10/2021 7:01:51 AM PDT by Truth29
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To: Kaslin

This guy is definitely on the right track imo. The way to defeat the stalinists is to refuse to be divided and form coalitions with people that have common interests. Rewarding your friends is very important if you want to win.


12 posted on 04/10/2021 7:03:59 AM PDT by BlackAdderess (The way to deal with bad ideas is to go through via critical thought, not around)
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To: Kaslin

I remember when the first states had their actual constitutions ruled unconstitutional by fed judges over their marriage amendments.

For every thread about actual judges overturning state amendments, there must have been 20 about a cable network suspending a reality TV guy who voiced his opinion that gay sex was gross.

I remember people were buying all this reality show merch crap in solidarity, a lot of the merch profit went right back to the network I guess. If I recall, he eventually went back to work and the show achieved record ratings for the cable network who suspended him in the first place. I always wondered why this network didn’t just suspend him every season, it seemed like it worked out for them.

Freegards


13 posted on 04/10/2021 7:05:40 AM PDT by Ransomed
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To: Kaslin

Fight or die. It’s plain which option so-called “conservatism” chose.


14 posted on 04/10/2021 7:08:03 AM PDT by TTFlyer (Vote harder, sucker. Yeah, that's the ticket. ..)
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To: Kaslin

The most successful “buycott” was the way people around the whole country rallied to Chick-Fil-A on Aug 6 2012.

Nonetheless, the incessant haranguing by homos and then BLM made Cathay forget that incredible show of backlash support. CFA has gone woke.


15 posted on 04/10/2021 7:31:47 AM PDT by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs. I )
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To: dsc

Even more pathetic is the fist bump. (Never mind the stupid COVID garbage.). Always having to mess with conventions.

Why can’t we just shake hands?


16 posted on 04/10/2021 7:39:01 AM PDT by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs. I )
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To: Kaslin

still buying Goya products. great ginger beer. i leave most of the national name brand products on the shelf.


17 posted on 04/10/2021 7:40:57 AM PDT by joshua c (Dump the LEFT. Cable tv, Big tech, national name brands)
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To: the OlLine Rebel
The most successful “buycott” was the way people around the whole country rallied to Chick-Fil-A on Aug 6 2012.

Nonetheless, the incessant haranguing by homos and then BLM made Cathy forget that incredible show of backlash support. CFA has gone woke.

Right after the "buycott," Cathy's woke son Dan took over the company and brought it into line with the rest of the corporate Left. I haven't eaten at CFA since 2018 and don't plan to eat there anytime soon.

18 posted on 04/10/2021 7:51:34 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: the OlLine Rebel

“Why can’t we just shake hands?”

One more guy and it’s a movement.


19 posted on 04/10/2021 7:55:50 AM PDT by dsc (Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.)
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To: dsc
"We're going to take a hike through Hitler's Reich
And change that heil to 'give me some skin."

A Hot Time in the Town of Berlin--Frank Sinatra (1944)

20 posted on 04/10/2021 8:03:31 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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