On this week’s second edition of The Editors, Rich is joined by Maddy and Michael, as well as a new guest, Jeff Blehar. They focus on some of the horrendous cultural indecencies being promoted by Target and the LA Dodgers.
Target’s new LGBTQ+ product line (involving a brand known for Satanist-inspired merchandise) “is beyond the pale,” Maddy says. “This is more than just a smiling picture of two men holding hands with a rainbow behind them. This is something else and . . . I don’t understand how you can get so complacent with the nice sanitized version. . . . You just have to have a shred of common sense to realize that people are not going to respond well.”
These excesses go for the Dodgers, too, which caved to social pressure and will promote a sacrilegious group at one of their games. “It’s one thing to have sort of flamboyant LGBT participants,” Maddy says, “and it’s another thing to have something that’s explicitly anti-Catholic. . . . it’s making fun of core Catholic teachings, it’s ridiculing people who’ve given their lives to the church, often to serve the poorest in our communities.”
Michael reminds us that there have been attempted boycotts of Target in the past, but nothing really stuck. That might be a different story now. “Can we do something with Target?” he asks. “. . . Target’s audiences is a lot of families in the suburbs, right? And increasingly we are seeing . . . a lifestyle divergence where it’s families in the suburbs are conservative if they’re having lots of kids. And if you’re single and in the city, you’re on the liberal progressive side. So it’s harder for these companies to do this.”
To hear the rest of this conversation, along with a discussion of DeSantis’s announcement mishap and the horrible treatment of “Citi Bike Karen,” listen below.