The Wall Street Journal today chronicles Target’s ongoing woes under CEO Brian Cornell, who no matter how bad things get, clings to wokeness as a substitute for leadership. Titled “Target’s Slide From Cheap Chic to Dull Chore,” the article is behind a paywall, but you get the idea. From the story by Sarah Nassauer:
“Shopping at Target used to be a favorite activity,” said Meaghan Halligan, 48 years old, who lives in San Jose, Calif. Halligan said she used to go to Target frequently to buy cosmetics and other personal-care items. Now, many of those items are locked behind glass, she said.
Waiting for a worker to open a case to look at a single bottle “completely destroyed the experience of shopping,” Halligan said. “You might as well just go online.”
The reason everything is locked up is, of course, that if it isn’t, it will be stolen. As I wrote in an op-ed last year on Real Clear Markets:
The Target website boasts of the $100 million it is devoting to “advancing racial equity.” Of course, it is the embrace of “equity” at the expense of the concept of “equality” that provides the moral justification for shoplifting and organized theft. Target perpetuates a culture of grievance but then laments its inevitable result.
What exactly does “equity” mean? It doesn’t mean equality of opportunity in the spirit of the U.S.Constitution, but equality of result. In other words, if I don’t have a TV, and there are several hundred down at the Target store, I am within my rights to grab one without paying for it.
Let’s remember that when Target was in the eye of the firestorm over its “Pride” clothing line, which included toddler items and “tuck friendly” bathing suits, Cornell blamed his own middle-class customers who he said posed a physical threat to Target clerks.
As I wrote in the same piece:
The idea of leadership taught in business schools mostly disappeared years ago, replaced by what was once called political correctness, and now wokeism. As long as CEOs check the boxes of certain social and political causes, they are immune to media criticism and safe from the activists who would otherwise be their critics.
At least the Journal article acknowledges that “Some (shoppers) say they are still upset about a Pride month collection in 2023 that they felt went too far.” Coverage of companies like Target and Disney often cite a whole list of reasons why a company is struggling, ignoring the alienation of customers by all the wackiness.
As Walmart and slew of other companies jettison their DEI departments, the protection for woke CEOs may have reached its limits. Cornell must go, and the boycott of Target must continue.
