Jonathan Turley Missses The Point

Homicide detectives say that when you're interrogating a suspect, an obvious lie is as good as a confession. I would extend this to say that when you're reading a respected commentator, seeing him obviously miss the point is as good as seeing him get it. In this column from Sunday, Jonathan Turley circles around and around in an effort to make a point, but he manages to miss it and unintentionally prove another one.

His basic problem, which he can't shake, is that he's a member of the gentry class, which in the current alignment is allied with the one-percent rentiers, along with Marx's Lumpenproletariat, and a small but influential group of radical intellectuals that includes the pansexuals.

According to Wikipedia,

His father, John (Jack) Turley was an international architect, partner at Skidmore, Owens, and Merrill, and the former associate of famed modernist architect Mies van der Rohe. . . . His mother, Angela Piazza Turley, was a social worker and activist who was the former president of Jane Addams Hull-House in Chicago.

. . . He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1983, and a Juris Doctor degree from Northwestern University School of Law in 1987.

. . . During the Reagan Administration, Turley worked as an intern with the general counsel’s office of the National Security Agency (NSA).

. . . Turley holds the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at The George Washington University Law School, where he teaches torts, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. He is the youngest person to receive an academic chair in the school's history.

. . . His articles on legal and policy issues have appeared in national publications; he has had articles published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears in the national media as a commentator on a multitude of subjects ranging from the 2000 U.S. presidential election controversy to the Terri Schiavo case in 2005.He often is a guest on Sunday talk shows, with more than two-dozen appearances on Meet the Press, ABC This Week, Face the Nation, and Fox News Sunday.

In other words, he's a generational member of the Establishment, although in recent years he's adopted something of a Glenn Reynolds-style pose that "I'm not like the grifters who run this place." Nevertheless, the one thing he's never going to do is undermine his standing with his fellow grifters. His parents worked too hard to put him where he is.

The Bud Light boycott in particular has him worried.

Various writers dismissed the boycott against Bud Light and said that the company had to just “hold the line” because it would fade and fail. It hasn’t.

But something is happening that has taken experts by surprise. Consumers appear to be holding the line against a growing number of brands.

The response raises tough legal and business questions over companies launching campaigns viewed as political rather than commercial. On one hand, the objections to trans figures or products threaten a type of erasure of this part of our society. On the other hand, consumers are increasingly pushing back against what they see as heavy-handed marketing of causes. In the middle, often, are shareholders.

Cue furrowed brow -- he probably studies David Brooks for this point of style:

I support Target or companies selling pride products or items geared toward trans customers. However, some of these campaigns appear more than efforts to reach new pockets of consumers. Putting aside those with clear prejudices against a given group, some consumers are reacting to campaigns that appear to push political or social agendas rather than products.

. . . As private companies, they have every right to take these stances. Likewise, customers have every right to express their disagreement by seeking alternative products. The only other interested parties are the shareholders, who are faced with lower share values and higher losses.

You can bet Mr Turley is a member of the shareholder class himself and allied with the rentier one percent as well. This is clearly making him nervous.

It is not clear how these losses will impact social messaging through branding, but shareholders will have little influence.

Wait a moment. Shareholders via boards of directors have all the influence in the world. The board hires and fires the CEO, something of which Michel Doukeris, Brendan Whitworth, Brian Cornell, and Stan Kasten are all acutely aware. They are each fighting for their professional lives in this boycott epiosode, because the boycotts are unlikely to stop without apologies and high-profile departures. Mr Turley is badly missing an important point here in claiming that his allies in the rentier class are powerless. They can stop the boycotts whenever they please, and at some point, they'll have to.

Turley focuses on the executives, to the point that I'm not sure if he's being deliberately obtuse:

. . . While these campaigns may alienate consumers and even reduce profits, they offer personal and professional benefits for senior employees who make DEI policies a priority. The campaigns are the bona fides for executives in seeking opportunities and greater status.

. . . This is why executives will continue to pursue DEI campaigns regardless of their cost or the loss of consumers. Consumers seem to sense this “inherent logic,” and they are responding with the one means available to change the calculus. Companies will have to find a path through this morass with marketing that is inclusive and edgy without being political or proselytizing.

There's another factor that Mr Turley is completely ignoring here. The boycotts are great fun for the middle- and working-class consumers. For instance,

A new hip hop single called "Boycott Target" by Forgiato Blow and Jimmy Levy surged Monday to the No. 1 spot in the iTunes hip hop chart.

Taking advantage of the national backlash against Target having a Pride Month collection that included transgender "tuck-friendly" bathing suits seemingly designed for children, the song that was released Thursday made a quick rise to the top of the charts.

Target's stock has fallen $12.03 since May 17 and its market capitalization has plunged more than $10 billion in that time.

The Bud Light drinkers, Target shoppers, and as far as we can infer, the Dodgers fans, are sticking it to the toffs and having great fun doing it. Mr Turley, a toff if there ever was one, is so far clueless.