The reality of corporate protests - American consumers no longer count for much

 

Gun Free Zone points out the economic reality underlying corporate America's attitude towards American consumers.

If you remember correctly, during the GW Bush years, Hollywood made countless anti-War films that portrayed America as evil and our soldiers as either bloodthirsty killers or poor dumb hicks who signed up to be abused by the military because they were too stupid to know any better.

Every single one of these movies lost money.  They were box office flops.

Who actually watched Stop-Loss?  Nobody.

But Hollywood kept cranking them out because insulting America was more important than money.

These studios made their money back on popcorn fodder and their balance sheets were in the green at the end of the day.

And I hear what you are going to say “but don’t see the popcorn fodder too.”

You’re right, except it doesn’t matter.

Have you noticed just how much every popcorn fodder movie is the exact same piece of generic shit?

It’s because Hollywood no longer makes movies for America.  They make movies for the global market and they need shallow characters with dialog that is easy to dub or subtitle in a foreign langue without much lost in translation.

Any American cultural references are lost.  Any character depth is eliminated.

There are literally more people who watch movies in China than there are Americans.

India is getting up there.

Hollywood knows that if every American Republican, all 74 million Trump voters in 2020, never went to the theater again, never signed up for a streaming service ever again, never turned on the TV ever again, and just sat around watching old DVDs they already owned, that would make a rounding error difference on their balance sheets against the global market.

There are more NBA fans in China than there are total Americans.

MLB is trying to capture the same market.

Only football is still heavily US-dominated because football is uniquely American in culture.

So what that Coke or basketball insults American Conservatives.

They lose some sales in the US.

They make up for it in China because China loves it when American companies insult America, that is used as propaganda in China.

The Chinese government loves to throw Black Lives Matter back in our faces.  It pulls our teeth on calling them out on their human rights atrocities.

We saw that just recently in the meeting in Alaska.

(Paraphrasing)

US: “Your treatment of the Uyghurs is bad.”

CCP: “You commit genocide against black people.”

US: “Touche.”

The more the NBA or MLB go woke, the more they get promoted in China.

I’ve said go Woke, go broke is an absolute law, it is locally, it’s not globally.

A vegan restaurant that charges men and white people more and tells Trump supporters they are not welcome will fail because half the local population won’t eat there.

A multinational corporation that does the same won’t notice because the percentage of potential customers who boycott against their total market presence is a drop in the bucket.

There is literally nothing that the average Conservative consumer, in their day-to-day purchases, can do to a global megacorporation that makes an iota of difference.

There's more at the link.

Sadly for us Americans, the author speaks the exact and literal truth.  The Washington Post confirms:

China’s growing domestic wealth and swift recovery from the pandemic make it a top priority not just for banks like Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan, but also for Hollywood, consumer goods makers and Silicon Valley.

General Motors has sold more cars in China than in the United States for 11 consecutive years. Apple’s sales in China, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, rose by 57 percent last quarter, almost five times its growth back home. Overall, the United States is buying more Chinese goods each month than it was before the trade war that began in 2018.

Again, more at the link.

The flood of US corporations condemning Georgia's new electoral law is motivated not by concerns over democracy, but over pressure from progressive left-wing politicians and activists.  Those corporations are submitting to such pressure not because they care, but because it plays well in their major market - China.

How can we persuade US companies to approach issues as businesses, rather than as political pressure groups?  I don't know.  I have no answer to this conundrum.  All I know is, we'd better find an answer, or we're going to be in even more trouble than we are already.

Peter