Target May Have ‘Lost Control Of Narrative’

Gee, d'ya think? In this morning's New York Post,

Target’s decision to move some of its LGBT pride apparel in some of its locations made national headlines, and it may have lost control of its own narrative in the process, a top consumer researcher says.

Notice how gingerly the Post is covering this story. As I noted a week ago, Target's own corporate flack Erik Castaneda told Reuters that products are being withdrawn at all locations, not just in some southern states.

The products Target is withdrawing are being removed from all its U.S. stores and from its website, Castaneda said.

And as I noted yesterday, a YouTuber went undercover, representing himself as someone who wanted to buy a "tuck friendly" swimsuit, and was able to speak with a manager who explained these were "out of stock". Clearly Target is doing this very quietly, but as I noted in yesterday's post, it appeared to be actively dumping its Pride products even before the start of Pride Month.

But let's get back to the Post story:

[Chief insights officer for Collage Group David] Evans said Target had a long history of connecting with the LGBT community, but in the time period since it came to light that it was moving some of its Pride displays due to what it claimed were “threats” against some staffers, it’s faced heat from both ends of the political spectrum.

. . . "they probably did lose control of the narrative a little bit, because what ended up happening was the press is all about ‘Target pulls the merchandise,’ as opposed to Target employees are being threatened by, in fact, a very, very small group of people who represent a very small minority of anti-LGBT sentiment,” he told Fox News Digital.

Here's the problem. It's generally assumed that the Target and Bud Light boycotts are equivalent and stem from the same large-scale customer dissatisfaction with corporate catering to radical queers. The most easily quantifiable measure of how effective the boycotts have been is Bud Light sales:

The sales volume of Bud Light dropped 29.5% in the week ending May 20 as compared to the same period last year, according to data provided to Newsweek by Bump Williams Consulting and Nielsen IQ. This data showed the sales revenue drop 25.7% in the same period.

The nearly 30% drop marks another increase in losses week to week since the boycott gained traction in April. Bud Light sales dropped 28.4% from last year for the week ending May 13.

Bud Light lost 24% of its sales and Budweiser fell 10.5% in the four weeks ending May 20, according to the data.

Current headlines suggest this level of decline threatens Bud Light's position as the top US beer brand. This is simply not the result of "a very, very small group of people who represent a very small minority of anti-LGBT sentiment". We simply don't have equivalent reports of Target sales, but we do hear from headlines that Target's stock has been declining at record levels:

Target’s stock has lost a whopping $13.8 billion over the past two weeks, hitting its lowest levels in nearly three years as the “cheap chic” discount retailer continues to face backlash over LGBTQ-friendly kids clothing.

. . . The ongoing losses are a result of an ongoing 14-day boycott that was triggered by Target’s release of “PRIDE,” an LGBTQ-friendly line that includes clothing for children and “tuck-friendly” women’s swimwear with “extra crotch coverage.”

What this simply means is that investors are shorting Target stock irrespective of published sales figures, which aren't available.

Short selling involves borrowing a security whose price you think is going to fall from your brokerage and selling it on the open market. Your plan is to then buy the same stock back later, hopefully for a lower price than you initially sold it for, and pocket the difference after repaying the initial loan.

The link makes it clear that shorting a stock involves considerable risk, and short sellers must already have margin accounts with their brokerages to cover that risk. In other words, these are experienced investors who are making informed bets about Target's future performance. Again, this is not a story about "a very, very small group of people who represent a very small minority of anti-LGBT sentiment". This is a story about experienced investors who are losing confidence in Target's management.

That Target should be keeping so quiet about withdrawing its "tuck friendly" swimsuit range is an indication that its management is doing all it can to conceal a disastrous mistake. The whole situation is starting to remind me of the scene in The Big Short where Mark Baum, the contrarian fund manager, accuses a credit agency analyst, shown wearing medical eyeshades in the picture at the top of this post, of refusing to recognize that the mortgage securities her agency rates are fraudulent.

The corporations that are facing the boycotts are basically hoping it'll all blow over before they're forced to capitulate with apologies and CEO departures. It can take a long time for investors to respond to market reality, as The Big Short makes clear, but eventually there's a reckoning. Legacy media, including the New York Post, is feeding the denial, at least for now.

UPDATE: JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded Target stock on Thursday from "overweight" to "neutral," with analysts citing the possibility of a decline in sales due to consumers pulling back spending amid persistent inflation.

This comes as the retailer struggles with the backlash from its Pride merchandising marketing campaign which offered merchandise that included female-style swimsuits that have the option to "tuck" male genitalia.

The downgrade has nothing to do with that, of course. Just thought they'd mention it.

What do you think might happen to the stock if they actually announced they were sending the swimsuits to the landfill and the CEO was resigning?

How Goes The Battle?

Well, if anyone needs to read the tea leaves, Dylan Mulvaney

just did a TikTok video that confusingly reveals he spoke with his dad and told him he was attracted to and wanted to date women, while at the same time asserting that he wanted to have babies.

But an even more intriguing data point is this one at TheStreet: Target Just Dumped Its Pride Merchandise -- Here's Where It All May Go. This is important, because Bud Light has been the corporation least able to hide the damage the boycott has done -- although its weekly sales statistics are a week or more out of date when they're realeased, they're independent and hard to hide.

Target's sales are much harder to track down, although its decline in stock price has been visible, and anecdotal reports of empty stores over the Memorial Day weekend are at least encouraging. But the link, while it's clearly been placed by Target's own press and investor relations people, is notable for its spin:

Target Corporation (TGT) has decided to remove merchandise from its upcoming LGBQT Pride collection because of objections from right wing critics. [and this is before Pride Month, by the way.]

Fortunately, retailers have lots of experience getting rid of unsold apparel, whether by selling to off-price retailers like T.J. Maxx or Marshalls, both owned by TJX Companies Inc. (TJX) or just relegating clothing to landfills, which is not really good for the environment.

In Target’s case, the retailer will most likely -- and very quietly -- donate the merchandise to charities or foundations, possibly aligned with LGBTQ+ causes.

“We don’t have anything to share on this right now,” a company spokeswoman e-mailed TheStreet.

. . . [T]he retailer hasn’t disclosed how many products it plans to pull from the Pride collection. Target also declined to say what it will do with the merchandise.

So it sounds like the tuck-friendly bathing suits and rainbow-themed toddler outfits have already bombed, and the company will need to unload them -- but don't worry, this is all in the plan. Remember, this is addressed to an audience of investors.

Unlike Adidas, Target’s financial fallout is likely miniscule (although pulling products at all 1,954 stores across the country is no small thing.) In general, the retailer likes to keep its inventories lean.

. . . Target likes to employ time-limited collections to draw people to the stores so they can buy other items. The LGBTQ+ collection only lasts during Pride month in June.

Except, er, we aren't even in June yet, and they're having to dump the June Pride Month collection early. Isn't this a little like deciding your Christmas stuff isn't going to sell, so you're gonna start dumping it in November? The piece concludes,

Target might have escaped serious financial consequences but suffered a pretty big blow to its reputation. The retailer practically wrote the book on exclusive design partnerships, most notably its collaborations with Michael Graves, Isaac Mizrahi, Kate Spade, Missoni, and Jason Wu.

Beyond that,

Target’s stock has lost a whopping $12.7 billion over the past two weeks, hitting its lowest levels in nearly three years as the “cheap chic” discount retailer continues to face backlash over LGBTQ-friendly kids clothing.

The ongoing losses are a result of an ongoing 14-day boycott that was triggered by Target’s release of “PRIDE,” an LGBTQ-friendly line that includes clothing for children and “tuck-friendly” women’s swimwear with “extra crotch coverage.”

A line which, again, is now being dumped even before its Pride Month official debut. This video from an undercover YouTuber indicates that at least the "tuck friendly" bathing suits are unofficially withdrawn and are presumably among the stock being dumped.

So far, if media spin is any indication, the official line continues to be that the impact of the boycotts is minimal, no big deal, we'll just take it all in stride. AB InBev CEO Michel Doukeris set the tone from the start:

Doukeris said it's too early to determine the economic impact of Mulvaney's post or the calls to boycott the brand, and that Bud Light's volume decline in the U.S. during April only represents 1% of the brand's global volume. He added that Bud Light is just one of many beer brands owned by Anheuser-Busch, so it likely won't impact the company's "full-year outlook," per CNN.

But at that level, a loss of 1% in total volume is non-trivial, especially if it was brought about by a highly visible, unforced error -- and in Doukeris's case, if it was compounded by his own refusal to replace a bad subordinate.

The problem for Bud Light, now Target, and likely the Dodgers, is that the Pride boycotts are affecting sales and stock price for much longer than "experts" anticipated, and they're having a less tangible effect in damaging corporate reputations. So far, corporate culture has been slow to recognize the impact, but the impact is certainly there. This is inevitably going to play itself out.

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.

Bud Light, Target, The Dodgers, and Corporate Best Practices

I kept thinking about the basic principles of corporate crisis management and contingency planning that I outlined in yesterday's post for the rest of the day, and I came to some non-obvious conclusions. Let's start with the first principle that was in my link, but which I didn't quote yesterday:

Develop a crisis plan. Brainstorm potential crisis scenarios and use them to inform and regularly update your plan. . . . Simply having a plan is not enough when it comes to crisis management; you have to practice it. Everyone who would play a role should a crisis arise needs to know what the plan is and exactly what their role is.

Actually, any public corporation with a board of directors is required to show such a plan to its auditors, and show the auditors that it tests it. Banks, utilities, and other companies that are separately regulated need to account for this with their regulatory bodies as well. At least when I was writing such plans, they focused mainly on natural disasters, civil unrest, and terrorist attacks, but the principle was there, and in some companies that I consulted for, they also raised more basic questions of threats to the company's reputation.

But this raises an intriguing question: shouldn't someone on the staff at Bud Light, Target, or the Dodgers have been saying something like, "What about this scenario: the company picks a brand partner who immediately gets involved in an embarrassing scandal, and all of a sudden, there are videos and memes that go viral and make our brand look silly. What should we be doing? Should we be rehearsing this?"

This actually isn't all that different from the marketing experts who've been saying all along, especially about Bud Light, that in an effort to be inclusive, they excluded their customer base. In one way or another, Target and the Dodgers violated this marketing best practice as well. So, why didn't someone on the marketing teams at any of those companies raise a question about this: Why are we endorsing radical queers, when our customer base is middle America?

The answer is simple enough. Even if people in marketing at any of those places were familiar enough with best practices in the field, or for that matter in crisis management or contingency planning, they were smart enough to know they'd be sent to HR for counseling if they questioned anything related to inclusive. They weren't going to die on that hill, especially when nobody was going to listen no matter what they said. The only practical strategy would be to keep their heads down and let it all be resolved at levels well above their pay grade when the whole thing played out.

This actually goes to the little joke that a good corporate contingency planner keeps an updated resume off site at all times, as I certainly did. But even in a worst-case scenario where the company goes belly-up due to management miscalculation over a crisis, the one thing you can't do when you interview with a prospective new employer is claim credit for trying to tell them theyl were making a mistake -- that would simply identify you as a troublemaker.

Let'd go to another crisis management best practice that was also in yesterday's link, but that I didn't quote:

As any situation begins to get heated, remember to stay cool and think twice before acting.

I can only surmise what went on in the Dodgers' front office when, first, they discovered that they'd offended their customer base by announcing they'd give the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence a hero award during Pride Night, only then to find they'd offended a bunch of radical queers and others who aren't in their customer base by withdrawing the invitation. The result has been a panic of apologies, counterapologies, disinvites, and undisinvites. It's left the Dodgers with no credible strategy to end the controversy.

The basic question someone there should have posed, much earlier, should have beenm "Pride Night? What problem are we trying to solve?" On one hand, that would have avoided what could well now become an existential crisis for the Dodgers brand. On the other hand, the guy who posed that question would probably have been sent to HR for counseling on the spot.

There are probably a few people at the Dodgers who had the sense to keep their mouths shut and wait for the problem to be resolved at a level much higher than their own pay grade. But whether any other corporations learn anything from Bud Light, Target, and the Dodgers strikes me as doubtful indeed.

Flunking Crisis Management 101

I've mentioned here that I sometimes used to work in corporate contingency planning, both as a planner and part of a crisis response. A regional utility that I worked for at the time had a near-catastrophe when it failed to recognize that the 1994 Northridge earthquake had severely damaged its facilities. I was one of the people pulled off a desk job to carry a wrench and give the impression of restoring service, a last-minute move by the company that saved its reputation. So I have some experience in how these things ought to be done.

So far, both Budweiser and Target have earned at least D grades in crisis management, but I think in those cases, there are mitigating factors where the public mood over transsexualism has been changing quickly, and other factors like failing national leadership are also coming into play. The one company so far that's earning a complete F is the Los Angeles Dodgers. In fact, my undergraduate institution had a grade beyond F called "flagrant neglect", which may well apply to the Dodgers here. It was informally called a "flag", and it was sometimes issued. I never got a flag, but a roommate did. No matter, he went on to work for a whole career as a reporter at the New York Times.

Let's just take a 30,000 foot view of the Dodgers' performance over the past two weeks, which warrants not just an F but a flag. It managed to take a potential net positive -- after listening to a reasonable explanation of why the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence could be offensive to a large segment of its fan base, including Latins, other Catholics, and other Christians -- it elected to disinvite them from its Pride Night, itself a questionable event. If, as Budweiser also neglected to do, it had given a moment's thought to its customer base, this wouldn't have happened in the first place.

Then, after angry responses from LGBTQ+ groups and behind-the-scenes pressure from local leftist politicians and the local teachers' union, they wussed out, rescinded their disinvite, and even issued a formal apology to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence:

After much thoughtful feedback from our diverse communities, honest conversations within the Los Angeles Dodgers organization and generous discussions with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Los Angeles Dodgers would like to offer our sincerest apologies to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, members of the LGBTQ+ community and their friends and families.

Not only did this put Dodgers management in a position of looking weak, indecisive, and unprincipled, but it managed to do something that no athletic team, and not even a Hollywood studio, had managed to do in over 60 years, get crosswise with the Catholic Church. So far, the Roman Catholic Archdioseses of Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as the Diocese of Orange, have opposed the Dodgers' move. The Diocese of Orange's opposition is especially important, because when the Dodgers originally disinvited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Angels, which call themselves a Los Angeles team although they play in Anaheim in Orange County, appeared to offer to host the "sisters" at its own pride night.

Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken tweeted Saturday that she was among those upset by the Dodgers’ decision and invited the Sisters to the Angels’ Pride Night on June 7.

“Pride should be inclusive and like many, I was disappointed in the Dodgers decision,” she posted on Twitter, using the hashtag #CityofKindness.

As the LA Times commented, this position wasn't exactly clear, and it looks as though the mayor belatedly realized she'd stepped in it:

It wasn’t immediately clear if she issued an official invitation to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence beyond the tweet or if the group would be honored in any way at Angels’ Pride Night. A spokesperson for Aitken declined to answer questions, saying there were no updates available.

The Sisters also didn’t immediately respond to questions about the Angels’ invitation Monday. A spokesperson for the Angels declined to comment.

Clearly the Angels know they're opening themselves to an equivalent backlash if they follow through on the offer, and remarks by the Bishop of Orange have them on notice.

Statement re: Mayor of Anaheim's invitation to Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as her special guest to Angels Pride Night: pic.twitter.com/VdczRGF5G3

— Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange (@OrangeDiocese) May 22, 2023

By late yesterday, there were signs that the Dodgers were slowly beginning to realize that, rather than averting a corporate crisis, they'd made things much worse for themselves. Naturally, their reponse was timid and utterly inadequate:

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw announced on Friday the team would relaunch its Christian Faith and Family Day, just days after the organization re-invited the radical anti-Christian transgender group, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, to its tenth annual Pride Night event.

. . . In the replies to Kershaw’s tweet announcing Christian Faith and Family Day, social media users called on Kershaw, a vocal Christian, to denounce the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and his team’s decision to re-invite them to Pride Night.

“Glad this is coming back but you gotta speak out against @SFSisters openly mocking Christ,” one user replied. “This Christian event, which has no involvement prior to the game or during, will not fix the wrongs your team has done.”

Bp Barron himself responded,

Not enough, @Dodgers. If you really want to reach out to Christians, don’t celebrate anti-Christian hate groups. https://t.co/Ne7RNWr2DF

— Bishop Robert Barron (@BishopBarron) May 26, 2023

Here's the kind of basic advice you get in Crisis Management 101, for instance:

If your company is in the wrong, admit it as soon as possible. The public is much more forgiving if a company accepts responsibility for its actions early on rather than if a company backtracks down the road or gets caught trying to cover up a mistake. Equally as important, do not make definitive statements without having all of the information, but don’t let that prevent you from communicating.

. . . In a time of crisis, keeping messaging consistent is critical – this includes consistency in who is delivering the messaging. The entire communications team and stakeholders should not deliver comments to anyone unless explicitly specified. All inquiries should be directed to the approved spokesperson.

. . . Immediately addressing the problem and presenting a solution during a crisis is a great idea, but the company must ensure that the messaging is consistent and actionable. Presenting a solution that will never see the light of day isn’t helpful to anyone and media can see through the insincere response. Be sure to update the press with transparent and attainable messaging.

So, how have the Dodgers been handling this? They've been waffling. First, they disinvited the "sisters", although it was a bad decision to have invited them in the first place. Then they un-disinvited them and apologized for disinviting them. This means that their only choices now are refusing to un-disinvite them or re-disinvite them, neither of which will convey the impression that they're addressing the problem. This means that at this point, they can't convey a consistent and actionable message, since they've created the impression that any apology they issue will just be rescinded with a counter-apology a few days later.

Not only that, but nobody from Dodgers management is responding, they're just trotting out a player to say he's excited about a Christian day. This violates the rule that there needs to be a single, approved spokesman who delivers a transparent message.

The moment I saw the apology to the "sisters" on Monday, even before Bp Barron announced the boycott on Thursday, I realized the Dodgers CEO will have to be fired, and even then, the team owners will have to do a real scramble to preserve the brand. As of now, especially given Bp Barron's immediate tweet responding to the half-hearted announcement of a Christian night of some sort, I'm getting the impression that Bp Barron is consulting and coordinating with Mr Burch and other Catholic laity. As I noted yesterday, here is Mr Burch's position:

Here are my terms: 1) We get a complete public apology from the Dodgers, 2) the Dodgers pledge never to host or honor an anti-Catholic hate group again, 3) the people responsible for this stunt are fired, and 4) The Dodgers agree to make a gift from their foundation to a group of religious sisters that perform real charity.

I get the impression that Bp Barron is on board with this, though he is letting Mr Burch be the lead. When the dust settles, the Dodgers CEO will almost certainly have been fired, and there may well be a realignment in the team's ownership.

Uh-Oh Again

When I first saw the clips from Trump's CNN town hall on YouTube the morning after the event, I instinctively said "uh-oh" before I said anything else. What I was thinking was probably along the line that Trump is back, but he's not just back, he's back like John Wick or Jason Bourne. And I wasn't the only one; Christiane Amanpour, who must be the doyenne of unassailably correct opinion, called the event an "earthquake". Yesterday afternoon, when I heard that Bp Baron had called for a boycott of the LA Dodgers, I had the same gut uh-oh reaction. I need to parse this out.

First, Bp Barron is hardly a fire-breathing conservative. Abp Cordileone of San Francisco was much more explicit in his reaction this past Tuesday to the Dodgers reversing their earlier decision to disinvite the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from their Pride Night, enjoining his audience to "Gird your loins". Bp Barron had in fact earlier drawn criticism for appearing to condemn the Covington, KY Catholic schoolboy Nicholas Sandmann for systemic racism even after that story had been generally debunked.

Second, it's been many years since any Catholic bishop has called for a boycott. The only even mildly equivalent case I've found so far is the Roman Catholic Bishop of Albany, NY, who in 1957 called for Catholics to boycott Albany's Strand Theatre over the film Baby Doll. According to Wikipedia,

Filmed in Mississippi in late 1955, Baby Doll was released in December 1956. It provoked significant controversy, largely due to its implied sexual themes. An effort to ban the film was carried out by the Roman Catholic advocacy group National Legion of Decency, but responses to the group's condemnation of the film were varied among Catholic laity and other religious institutions.

This is so long ago that it predates the Second Vatican Council, and it's hard to avoid thinking Catholic bishops gradually lost their enthusiasm for bans and boycotts over subsequent years. For instance, the National Legion of Decency

was a Catholic group founded in 1934 by Archbishop of Cincinnati, John T. McNicholas, as an organization dedicated to identifying objectionable content in motion pictures on behalf of Catholic audiences. Members were asked to pledge to patronize only those motion pictures which did not "offend decency and Christian morality".

. . . Professor James Skinner wrote that by the late 1950s and early to mid-1960s, the Legion was beginning to lose its influence both within Hollywood and within the Catholic Church. Skinner noted that in some cases, young Catholics throughout the country saw a “C” rating as a reason to see a particular film. He argued that as a result of the Church’s liberalization after the Second Vatican Council, and a decline in the initial enthusiasm for the Legion, the Legion ceased to exist by the mid 1960s.

It's worth noting that Bp Barron has frequently pointed out that he is a full supporter of the Second Council (and as I've said here, I'm aligned with Bp Barron). He's also remarked that some think he isn't a Pope Francis guy, but after all, Pope Francis has made him a bishop twice. I can't avoid thinking that Bp Barron is minding his career, although likely not for his own aggrandizement.

So on one hand, for Bp Barron to call on Catholics to boycott the Dodgers is a departure from over 60 years of Catholic bishops' strategy. On the other, several days elapsed between the Dodgers' decision to un-disinvite the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, announced on Monday, May 22, and Bp Barron's call for a boycott yesterday, May 25. This suggests to me that his decision wasn't impulsive, and it must have been made in consultation with other bishops and lay organizations like CatholicVote.

I would assume the bishops he consulted would have included, at minimum, Abps Cordileone and Gomez, and others in national leadership. I would also assume those bishops were on board with him taking a national leadership posture on the matter. I simply can't imagine Bp Barron freelancing on this issue, so I'm also beginning to think this marks the start of an overall change in attitude among US bishops.

Nor can I ignore the factor that's clearly driving Bp Barron's move, which is the unprecedented populist revolt embodied in the boycott of Bud Light. Here's the overall objective, of which Bp Barron must be aware, expressed in an e-mail from Bob Burch, President of CatholicVote, which had been a major factor in the original campaign to get the Dodgers to disinvite the "sisters" :

Here are my terms: 1) We get a complete public apology from the Dodgers, 2) the Dodgers pledge never to host or honor an anti-Catholic hate group again, 3) the people responsible for this stunt are fired, and 4) The Dodgers agree to make a gift from their foundation to a group of religious sisters that perform real charity.

We'll have to see how this plays out. But one thing that strikes me is that under the old Legion of Decency, Catholics were expected simply to do what their bishops told them to do. In this case, it looks like the bishops are supporting the laity once the laity had gotten the ball rolling.

In any case, the Dodgers have now got to be aware that they've gotten crosswise with the Catholic Church. Major league baseball teams have typically marketed themselves as institutions that represent the best of community values. If nothing else, the Dodgers have a corporate crisis on their hands comparable to Bud Light or Target.

Tuck Friendly?

People keep missing the point. A YouTuber named Prime Time Stein had the brilliant idea to find out for himself what one of those "tuck friendly" Target women's bathing suits was like; he went into a Target, took one off the rack, went into the changing room, and tried it on. The results are visible in the screen shot above (click on the image for a clearer view). Whatever they claim to have done, it doesn't seem to make much difference.

I get the impression that to be nice, he actually paid for it, but if it were me, I'd turn around and file a civil claim for false advertising, except I've got to question the judgment of any guy who'd go out and buy a women's bathing suit intended for men on the basis that it would somehow make it look like he wasn't a guy.

Heck, back when I was single, even at that time (I lived in LA, after all), the advice was always just to be a little extra careful and check a "woman's" wrists or Adam's apple to be sure you aren't getting yourself into a surprise situation. "Tuck friendly" was never the only issue.

So who are they trying to kid? If anything, they're selling a fantasy that if you buy their Pride collection, you can actually fool somebody into thinking you're a woman. But if you can never really do that, what on earth are you trying to prove otherwise?

This extends to the level of corporate gaslighting Target has undertaken to cover for its campaign, much like Bud Light's almost two months ago. NPR carries the officially approved line:

Reuters reported that the company is removing from stores and its website products created by the LGBTQ brand Abprallen, which offers some products featuring spooky, gothic imagery, such as skulls and Satan, in pastels colors.

Conservative activists and media have also bashed Target in recent days for selling "tuck-friendly" women's swimsuits that allow some trans women to hide their genitalia, the Associated Press reported.

Target has only been selling tuck-friendly swimsuits made for adults — and not, contrary to false online rumors, for kids or in kid sizes, the AP also found.

But I picked this photo right off the web; it appears to be a trans boy of an age where his anatomy is quite a bit easier to tuck away -- maybe 13 at the oldest.

Prime Time Stein's stunt shows that "tuck friendly" just doesn't work for a mature male's anatomy; they couldn't use a 21-year-old for that shot. This does raise troubling questions of just whom they're trying to sell these bathing suits to. Well, hebephilia is the term used to describe a preferential sexual interest in pubescent (i.e. early adolescent) individuals, rather than adult partners.

Elsewhere, reporters have taken a closer look at the Target Pride displays:

[S]ome children’s items feature a label overtly pushing the transgender agenda, reading, “Thoughtfully Fit on Multiple Body Types and Gender Expressions.”

Even the Associated Press has admitted this fact, noting that a Target store in New York City featured kids’ black swimskirts for sale with a tag that states, “Thoughtfully Fit on Multiple Body Types and Gender Expressions.” This description can be seen directly on the Target website as well with a little girl modeling that particular piece of clothing. Further, the “pride” section still offers an array of pride-themed swimwear for children as well, which is confirmed on Target’s online store as well.

A teal and lime green pride-themed children’s swimsuit, for example, is adorned with pride tags, one of which states that it is “designed for comfort & confidence.” It also contains a tag reading “Thoughtfully Fit on Multiple Body Types and Gender Expressions.”

A corporate statement from Target issued yesterday basically blames the customers:

For more than a decade, Target has offered an assortment of products aimed at celebrating Pride Month. Since introducing this year's collection, we've experienced threats impacting our team members' sense of safety and well-being while at work. Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.

The Philadelphia Inquirer repeated this line:

Several videos showed people destroying stores’ cardboard Pride displays or making scenes about Pride products. The company confirmed it has moved its Pride displays from the front of the stores to the back in some Southern locations.

Actually, the videos I've seen include a TikTok in which a woman asks store staff, "Where's the straight section?" with the staff remaining uncomfortably silent, or the guy in the screen shot at the top of this post showing just how ridiculous an idea "tuck friendly" is for a normal adult male and proposing a "tuck you" campaign against Target. None of this is either violent or threatening to Target employees -- but their corporate masters have in fact put them in embarrassing predicaments.

This is gaslight culture. So far, it's feeding the boycotts.