Why Target Will Win The Bathroom Boycott Battle

I hate doing prediction pieces. Particularly when I'm not dealing with law. I'm a logic person by nature and if I can't lay down solid premises then I won't usually make a prediction. I'm going to go out on a limb based on certain circumstances and history. They are key reasons why I think Target "wins" in the long term.

1) The power of big business.

We talk about "to big to fail" when discussing banks but this thinking applies equally to big box retailers. Big box retailers have decimated the mom and pop economy. You can probably count on your hands the number of places where the vast majority of people purchase their regular items. Target is one of those places. A large percentage of the US population buys products at Target, Walmart, Kmart, Sears, JC Penny. Sears and Kmart are the same company. Old Navy, Gap are the same company.

The only way that Target is affected by a boycott is if Target stores are as empty as a Target store in Bergen County on a Sunday. For those who don't know, Target stores in Bergen County NJ are closed and therefore empty. Unless or until I see Target stores empty, particularly on profitable Saturdays, Target wins.

The other thing about these big businesses is that most of them are run by people who run in the same circles. If you think that Walmart, Kmart and Sears have not or will not have the same policies, you are mistaken. They may not announce it. But believe me, as soon as one person suffering gender dysphoria is denied access to the toilet of their choosing, the companies will fall in line. Company's dislike bad press but what they despise more than bad press is being labelled "bigoted".

2) The power of the state:

Should Target decide to reverse course and declare a traditional position on toilets they will be met with the same problem that Chik-Fil-A met when the owners of that franchise declared it's position on homosexuality. Never mind that Chik-Fil-A discriminated against exactly zero customers. We had town and state officials attempting to deny it the ability to do business. And that was years ago before WW T got into motion. Such a move by Target would bring down wrath from Federal agencies on down. That's not even getting into the effects on the social and business circles of the executives. I would not be surprised if Target then became the target of a discrimination lawsuit by the federal government, a private citizen "customer" as well as an employee. It would be very public and very nasty.

3) The historical record:

So far the only entities that have fared well against the "gay mafia" has been Duck Dynasty and Chik-Fil-A. What are the characteristics of those two entities? They both did not give a damn about the public. The Duck Dynasty was willing to go back to whatever it was they were doing before they got their show. And you'll note that since then you haven't heard too much about them in the media. Similarly Chik-Fil-A refused to kneel and is still a small player in the fast food market.

As noted before, Target is not similarly situated. It has no real principle to hang its hat on and it is certainly not willing to go out of business because...

4) Who exactly is the customer base?

Target, among many other businesses doesn't really know who it's customer base is. Or maybe it does. What we are going to find out is how many of it's customers are conservative or traditional and of those, how many are willing to put their money where their mouth is. As said earlier in the piece unless Target finds it's stores empty, particularly in states, cities and towns with a supposedly conservative or traditional base, they will be just fine in the long run.

Let me reference a quote found in a post by the Ex-Army Libertarian Nationalist:

What would the public do if Trump were robbed of the nomination? What could the public do? There might be protests, mass demonstrations in the streets, but so what? The Insiders’ Club would just wait them out. Once a society realizes that it has no power over its rulers, it lapses into resignation. Republicans do not loot malls or burn cities, and would soon go home. But all the world would see that the Americans have no recourse, that the Insiders do as they please. Welcome to China.

This is key. Replace Trump with Target and "robbed of nomination" with [insert gay lobby theme here]. Same deal. There's a lot of talk about how much the stock has gone down. I think the excitement over that is overblown. That is short term losses and doesn't necessarily mean that actual income or sales have gone down. The latter is far more important than stock price.

People returning items and the like looks good but Target is also considering whether their "liberal" customer base would do the same thing if they reverse course. If the "liberal" customers are far more organized and effective in their targeting of a reversed Target then Target would lose more. This is the calculus. Which base of customers are more willing to actually carry out inflicting long term financial harm? I'm not entirely certain from the history I've seen that conservative or traditional customers are so motivated.

5) Media collusion

Already we have seen the tactic of disappearing Target news in the media. This will act as a means of dropping the decision into the memory hole. Americans have a very short memory span. Since conservative and traditional Americans tend to be employed with lots of responsibility, this can mean that they can forget about the Target decision. This helps Target in the long term. Believe me when I say that if Target had made a different decision it would be in the news for weeks on end. Chik-Fil-A and recent "religious freedom" bills are evidence for that.

What would get Target back in the news as a "win" for boycotters? A quarterly report with massive sales declines. The kind that threatens to have store closings.