One of the most difficult lessons of my childhood was learning that the things I said and did had an impact on whether people liked me or not.
Calling someone a donkey brain poop face (even as a child I had a good vocabulary) rarely resulted in being allowed to play with Donkey Brain’s toys.
At the time, this struck me as very unfair, but over time I adjusted. Being nice, I learned, has its rewards.
The ability to avoid insulting people is especially important if you are in the selling trades. Calling potential customers ignorant losers is unlikely to increase your sales.
This seems very obvious to me, and perhaps to you as well, but it is apparently not obvious to Mike Lindell, the CEO of the My Pillow company.
Mr. Lindell has made a great deal of money selling high priced bedding. One-hundred-dollar pillows — that kind of thing.
But, as you probably know, following the 2020 election Mr. Lindell signed up early and often for Team Election Fraud in the race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Lindell railed in the right-wing media that Dominion Voting Systems threw the election and that anyone who disagreed was an anti-American traitor.
As you know, things haven’t turned out so well for some of the most outspoken allegers of election fraud. FOX was sued by Dominion and chose to settle out of court for just under $790 million. Dominion’s lawsuit against Lindell for $1.35 billion is still in the works.
Meanwhile, major retailers such as Walmart, Bed Bath and Beyond, Wayfair and H-E-B, along with several shopping channels, have all dropped his product line. Too much negative publicity. Dropping consumer demand.
As a result, Lindell announced recently that his company has lost $100 million over the last year, and he’s not shy about explaining why. Cancel culture, he says. It’s all because of cancel culture.
The idea of cancel culture is pretty basic: I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, but if you say stuff in public I think is stupid, false, and/or hurtful, then I might decide to stop following you on social media, or buying your products, or watching movies you’re in, or whatever.
In other words, you can do or say whatever you like. But if I don’t like what you’re doing I have no moral obligation to consume whatever it is you’re offering.
I don’t see why this idea is suddenly considered so insidious. Remember when Denver Broncos QB Colin Kaepernick didn’t stand for the national anthem? Critics, most of them from the political right, howled, and Trump thundered. Fire him! Nike must drop his product line!
The Kaepernick controversy was cancel culture at its finest.
More recently Kanye West (now Ye) made headlines by launching several antisemitic and other hate speech rants on social media. Sponsors couldn’t drop him fast enough, costing him an estimated loss of over $600 million.
But back to pillows. If you run a company that makes and sells pillows, then your job is to make sure it happens. Hopefully profitably. That’s it. Period.
But if a major pillow company’s CEO starts doing FOX News interviews alleging election fraud without evidence and thinks he can do it without any impact on his company, then he is desperately naïve.
After all, the only reason he’s getting media coverage is because he’s the head of a big company. Otherwise, he’s just one more sidewalk sign-waver.
Mr. Lindell doesn’t get to have it both ways. Fame, wealth and power changes things. People will show up when he says he wants to talk. That’s how we roll in America. Maybe it’ll be news. Maybe it’ll be a trainwreck. Either way it’s entertainment.
But hey — if you agree with Mike Lindell’s opinions, then by all means go out and buy his pillows. I checked his website and he’s got a $137 pillow this week on sale for just $97. At that price you should stock up. In the meantime, Lindell can say whatever he likes, he can be sued by anyone who thinks he’s defamed them, and you can spend your money as you see fit. It’s not cancel culture, it’s a free country.
I love America.
(1) comment
No you don't, you dog faced pony soldier.
You hate America, our founding fathers, our statues, our constitution, our traditions, our
Way of life. Commiecrats are the enemy to all
That is American.
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