Republicans Who Buy Sneakers, Corporate Class Cowardice, Civics, and Free & Independent Thought

Courses like rhetoric, forensics, civics were once crucial in developing critical-thinking skills in school, but have largely vanished. Two generations later, the effect is clear – and discouraging.

Michael Jordan’s quip, “Republicans buy sneakers, too” may have been, as he later described it, in jest and off the cuff – nonetheless, it reflects a maturity that now seems to have been beyond his years, at the time.¹

‘But I never thought of myself as an activist. I thought of myself as a basketball player.

I wasn't a politician when I was playing my sport. I was focused on my craft.’

Jordan…doubled down on his position.

‘It's never going to be enough for everybody, and I know that,’ he said. ‘I realize that. Because everybody has a preconceived idea for what I should do and what I shouldn't do.’

‘The way I go about my life is I set examples. If it inspires you? Great, I will continue to do that. If it doesn't? Then maybe I'm not the person you should be following.’

This reflects a worldview that is all but extinct, except for an ever-decreasing demographic who came of age in a time when the makers and retailers of all manner of consumer goods only really cared about selling their products to more people. This focus drove innovation, improvements in quality, and a quest to be able to command a premium price because of a reputation for a high-quality, reliable product. Where that product wasn’t tangible, it was about the service (or the experience, even though no one referred to it that way, then).

For example, it used to be that within seconds of entering a McDonald’s restaurant, you were greeted with, “Welcome to McDonald’s! May I take your order?” by a live person (usually a teenage girl) behind the counter, smiling, and seemingly sincerely grateful that you had selected that McDonald’s location for your meal. The restaurant was clean, the trash receptacles were emptied frequently so as not to be overflowing with refuse, and there was nothing to indicate that anyone had been at your table before you sat down.²

This is recounted to illustrate that there was a time when business – regardless of its size, its scale, its products, its services, what its owners and/or employees believed, or anything else – was about business, and only business. It was the only thing that mattered within the confines of that shop, store, garage, factory, or office.

A changing of the guard, so to speak…
To anyone who has been paying any attention to what has been happening certainly for the last decade, but more likely the last twenty years, the private sector is no longer the province of apolitical commercial enterprises that once existed for one purpose and one purpose only: to make a profit. Now, that private sector has fissured into two distinct entities – the Corporate Class, and what I will refer to as the Small Business, Trades & Entrepreneurship Class.

The Corporate Class is an affiliation of large-scale bureaucratic enterprises that seem to succeed in spite of their size, given that they rival only the federal government in their reach, impact and influence in the lives of Americans, especially those who are employed by these behemoths. More often than not, each of these multinational corporations’ C-level executives’ personal political ideology and worldview is one of a seemingly benign fascism, and they are better able to more closely align their enterprises’ missions with authoritarian and tyrannical governments of foreign nations (read as China) – frequently with the impramatur of their institutional shareholders (often the majority), who are also similarly ideologically oriented.

Domestically, the Corporate Class almost as a whole is in bed with the Marxist Democrat establishment. In contrast, the SBT&E Class is in bed with no one as each enterprise continues to exist solely to make a profit. Its champion, indirectly, is President Donald Trump not only because he understands what it is to run a business as a business, but also because he’s the only one standing between a tyrannical government that would nationalize every going concern that managed to survive the regulatory and tax purge. 

Incidentally, this has happened, before.

In the 1960s, America’s private sector worked hand-in-hand with Democrat presidents Kennedy, then Johnson. Courtesy of Kennedy’s visionary challenge to the nation, America’s technology sector, and industries that enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the emerging aerospace, aerospace design, engineering & manufacturing, and computer industries benefited greatly from the endeavour of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth. Many larger enterprises in other industries benefited from President Johnson’s Great Society initiatives, while the military-industrial complex thrived under his continued escalation of the war in Southeast Asia.

Anecdotally speaking, the difference between the two eras of public-private cooperation is largely one of perception. The CEOs of those enterprises in the 1960s that were on board with these federal government-driven initiatives were so only as long as that partnership didn’t adversely effect the company’s bottom line – there was the sense that as soon as the arrangement was a liability, it would end almost instantly. Said enterprises were not dependent on federal subsidies or protection via onerous regulations that froze out competition for their survival as a going concern.  

In the post war era, this nation’s Captains of Industry – products of the Silent Generation, and those of the Greatest Generation that followed – are the ones who built the world’s strongest, most robust, and most prosperous economy. Due almost entirely to attrition, they have in large part been replaced by Millennial Corporals and Staff Sergeants of Organizational Bureaucracy, who lack both a moral imperative, and genuine principle.

An only seemingly overnight transformation
As one might expect, this decades-in-the-making watershed dovetails nicely with the evolution of social media from MySpace to Facebook and beyond. More specifically, the left’s hijacking of social media outlets like Facebook, then Twitter (now X), and Google’s willingness to promote content that supports the left’s narrative via its search engine’s algorithm while the same suppresses and shadow-bans content that does not – merely confirms the suspicion it is leveraging its control to put at a distinct disadvantage anyone who dares to dissent. Additionally, YouTube’s blocking and de-monetizing content that challenges the left’s narrative (and perhaps denying completely creators’ only means to generate revenue from their own content) speaks to this disturbing and unholy new alliance.

Suddenly, any enterprise with a presence on any social media platform needed to make certain it was signaling the right virtue, especially when it came to Pride Day/Week/Month lest it run afoul of the rainbow authoritarians³ – never mind that in some instances, certain endeavours and pursuits faced being shut down or driven out of existence if compliance (read as celebration) was not sufficient.⁴

All doubt about corporate America being apolitical was removed following the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016. The most notable example that occurs to me is the email that the CEO of GrubHub sent to employees⁵ which read:

‘I absolutely reject the nationalist, anti-immigrant and hateful politics of Donald Trump and will work to shield our community from this movement as best as I can,’ Matt Maloney wrote.

‘I want to reaffirm to anyone on our team that is scared or feels personally exposed, that I and everyone else here at Grubhub will fight for your dignity and your right to make a better life for yourself and your family here in the United States.’

‘If you do not agree with this statement then please reply to this email with your resignation because you have no place here,’ Maloney wrote. ‘We do not tolerate hateful attitudes on our team.’

The immediate pushback was successful, however, even if all it did was expose the utter hypocrisy and stupidity of allowing one’s allegiance to the group and groupthink drive policy and decision-making.

Shortly thereafter, came a clarification⁶ (as if his sentiment wasn’t abundantly clear):

‘Some of the statements in my email (please see full text below) have been misconstrued. I want to clarify that I did not ask for anyone to resign if they voted for Trump,’ clarified Maloney in a statement. ‘I would never make such a demand. To the contrary, the message of the email is that we do not tolerate discriminatory activity or hateful commentary in the workplace, and that we will stand up for our employees. Grubhub welcomes and accepts employees with all political beliefs, no matter who they voted for in this or any election. We do not discriminate on the basis of someone’s principles, or political or other beliefs.’

Well, which is it? To me, it sounds like he wants it both ways – to burnish one’s DEI (Didn’t Earn It), anti-Trump credentials, or actually BE diverse and inclusive by focusing on the business, and its mission.

“‘I would never make such a demand.’” – except he did!

Not so long ago, the CEO’s emotionally driven outburst as a statement of policy would have been an act of commercial – maybe even professional – suicide. Make no mistake, though – GrubHub took a little bit of a hit in the immediate aftermath, but has long since recovered, proving that alienating potentially half of a potential market was not harmful to an enterprise.

Indeed, it wasn’t – why is that?

There are probably a number of reasons, but mine is that it boils down to two:

First is a preference for association with a larger group and along with that a natural aversion to being different or oustide the mainstream.
Second is the increasing sophistication of marketing technology that enables large-scale enterprises to obtain an extraordinary amount of information about their customers, and the market(s) served.

The Group
Let’s examine the first one – preference for association with a larger group.

For all but a handful of individuals, the power of the group and groupthink is like the ‘borg in that Star Trek movie

…and all but irresistible. 

It begins in grade school. No one likes to be the outsider, the one who is different.⁷ It often means being the object of teasing and mocking on the playground at recess. In junior high, then high school, cliques begin to form, and most find where they fit in – the rebels without causes (or clues), jocks and cheerleaders, nerds and geeks, and of course, the drama club.⁸

Not everyone assimilates into a group, however. There are some who for whatever reason, opt to not be part of any larger whole. Regardless of the reason, such a characteristic bodes well for those who possess it, as will be demonstrated later in this discussion.

After high school, those cliques and associations vanish only to be replaced by new ones – at college, these typically are fraternities,⁹ clubs, or secret societies; a much larger one if the military is the destination, post graduation. Nonetheless, in the days before the left assumed ownership of social media in constructing its utopia, most everyone shed the trappings of the grade-school playground and high-school cafeteria to become mature adults and move beyond such juvenile and sophomoric behaviour – or so it seemed – the power of social media to quickly create virtual cliques, in-crowds, and “otherize” those who didn’t toe the party line merely awakened the inner high schoolers that apparently had only laid dormant since graduation. 

If you’ve been a member in good standing with the crowd, you become accustomed to exemption from ridicule, and just as unconsciously become confident of your status in the group. Eventually, your sense of self-worth is a function of that status, and you become more and more invested in it. 

Now, just imagine when your cohort comes to own not only popular culture, “news” and entertainment media, but consumer and commercial finance, the machinery of government at the federal, state, county, and municipal levels as well. Imagine also that it has also managed to marginalize and disenfranchise all who are not members, labeling them as hostile or a threat.

An unintended consequence of blind allegiance to the group – any group, over time – is the loss of critical-thinking skills. Eventually, one almost unknowingly forfeits the ability to think for one’s self, because the group’s hivemind does it, instead – and the hivemind takes its marching orders from those that stand to gain the most from the status quo, even if it means suffering for everyone else, even those in the larger group but not among the elite. This is a constant across all collectives where the power of those in leadership (either expressly or tacitly) is unchecked. If this is not clear from observing events since early 2016, might I recommend re-reading George Orwell’s, Animal Farm, or William Golding’s, Lord of the Flies?

The difference is that no one is coming to our rescue – that’s up to us.

Marketing technology and big data
Let’s now examine the second – the ever-evolving sophistication of marketing technology, or MarTech. Marketing technology has provided both commercial and non-for-profit enterprises with a constantly improving capability to apply the latest innovations to their research efforts, and it has yielded extraordinary results. These organizations have at their fingertips a wealth of information about their best customers; their best and most loyal donors, subscribers, and most zealous evangelists.

The data collected can be mined to develop highly detailed profiles that identify potential and likely donors; prospective users that can most likely be converted into repeat customers for those enterprises conducting commerce online. With big data, they can be contacted via ads and other messaging on web pages they’re viewing at any given time. In other words, these enterprises and organizations know almost exactly who is receptive to any given message, and since these entities also know that these users are also likely become revenue and/or donor streams, alienating those who do not fit the profile is not much of a concern, if it is one at all.  

Mr. Maloney’s misreading of his company’s employees notwithstanding, he had a pretty good idea even before he shot off his mouth that there would be very little if any appreciable damage to GrubHub’s bottom line beyond the next call with the analysts.

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Think different – literally…
The power of social media to virtually re-create high school isn’t helpful, but it is not the reason that propaganda apparatus-driven groupthink has taken hold of the sensibilities of those now in charge of so much of our society, and so many of our institutions. That reason, to my way of thinking, is a mindset and worldview – a common ethos, if you will – among those of the Silent, and Greatest Generations that is as different as that of the Baby Boom Generation as night and day.

That common ethos is a more than firm grasp of American government, its organization (three distinct branches, each with one other serving as a check and balance of power on the one remaining to which too much power may be accruing) and its place in the American social and societal order, but also an appreciation of this nation’s founding as a constitutional republic. It is more than a casual knowledge of the constitution and the reasons the founders intended government to be small, and its power severely limited.

All of this knowledge was imparted to every student in elementary and high school through the better part of the most recent century via civics courses. Armed with such knowledge, many were emboldened as adults to stand up for their rights at some point. In the process of doing so, they helped to preserve as well as defend their constitutionally protected civil liberties against violation by both private and public entities – for a little while, at least. 

Classic Civics
A classic civics education engenders a sense of patriotism to varying degrees as well as one of American exceptionalism, and a healthy nationalism. This is unavoidable because a classic civics education requires a critical examination of American history, with special emphasis on the years preceding the declaration of independence, and the years after ratification of the constitution.

The more one learns about these eras and the people who played significant roles in the founding of this nation, the more one realizes just what an extraordinary country is the United States of America. 

Along with the aforementioned is a heightened awareness of the forces at work seeking to destroy America and all it represents – and that awareness among so many is likely what most vexes the left.

While there is no clear indication of just when classic civics disappeared from the landscape of public school districts’ curricula nationwide, consensus points to the middle to late 1960s. I submit that it was such course content and the lessons applied that in retrospect, was a most effective backstop against the official government-approved madness we see today.

It has been my view that the quiet deep-sixing of civics courses was by design – part of the left’s long game to slowly, strategically, and systematically decimate America from within. It was no accident there was also a reduced emphasis on other subjects that help to develop critical-thinking skills¹⁰ – courses like rhetoric and forensics, and assignments like writing term papers which helped to develop research skills, as well.

In many high schools, first-year composition is still a required course, but there is growing support for its elimination¹¹ due to the capabilities of generative artificial intelligence and its ever increasing presence in virtually all aspects of academic life – but we’re veering off topic, here.

With the benefit of hindsight, its elegantly simple design is easy to see: by removing institutional reinforcement of patriotism, nationalism, and American exceptionalism; replacing civics courses with ‘social studies’ that focus on seemingly insoluble problems, sowing divisiveness based on immutable characteristics to breed animosity between the genders and ethnicities; then substituting appeals to emotion for critical thinking and reason, the most immediate and formidable threat to the emergence of an authoritarian state – a populace whose people are by and large, able to think for themselves – is all but removed.

If you don’t believe me, take George Carlin’s word for it.¹²

Civics is dead. Long live Civics!
The civics courses making a resurgence today are undoubtedly taught with a decidedly Marxist orientation. An online search via Google will return an untold number or articles on the importance of teaching civics to prevent a repeat of the election of Donald Trump, and how censorship and the abridgment of certain rights by a Democrat administration is actually consistent with the constitution – something for which I do not possess the intellectual agility to even begin to understand.

Personally, I found it peculiar how many on the left suddenly embraced the legitimacy of the tenth amendment when President Trump was in office. If one invoked the same in opposition to any legislative endeavour of the Obama administration, one was immediately condemned as a racist.

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It’s that aforementioned blind allegiance to the collective – identifying as a member of the group first, and in the process forfeiting one’s own agency that so starkly contrasts with one who stands apart from the herd by virtue of a clear idea of one’s identity, regardless of all else.

Though a minority, to be sure, but not as small in number as one might be led to believe – iconoclasts, regardless of their time, are the ones among us who, possessed of uncommon resolve persevere in the face of opposition, are able to blaze new trails that challenge and in some cases, even alter convention.

Examples might be Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Steve Jobs, H. Ross Perot, and perhaps even Elon Musk – men whose achievements were driven by ideas – not necessarily only to amass wealth (for if that were the purpose, they could have chosen any number of other well-traveled roads). No, each had a vision.

It is more than a little ironic that the massive enterprise that emerged from the personal computer built in Jobs’ parents’ garage would cynically co-opt some of the more notable, relatively contemporary non-conformists for a purpose as pedestrian as a corporate advertising campaign.

Those mavericks didn’t start out seeking to challenge the conventional wisdom of their day – they weren’t looking to cause trouble. Yet, some were even considered to be dangerous (at least, to the keepers of the status quo), and there is none more dangerous than one who has awakened to the complete moral and ethical decay of the group with which they once identified or the cause it championed – and not only awake to it, but cannot help but call out the apostasy of the vanguard – publicly, if necessary. See Martin Luther, Malcolm X, or David Horowitz.

It isn’t necessarily anything as significant as calling out the Roman Catholic Church for its practice of selling indulgences, or demonstrating peacefully for civil rights against the backdrop of the Jim Crow-era south – rather, it’s usually something as benign as simply expressing principled dissent from that held by most of the rest of the larger group, particularly those who are either officially or tacitly its leadership. See Bret Weinstein, Ph.D, Robert Malone, M.D., and Ilya Shapiro.¹³ ¹⁴

The bravery of those who question, who stand up for what is right – is not to be underestimated or even dismissed. It carries a cost: perhaps loss of career & livelihood, a sterling reputation, or friends and colleagues; and many have paid that price. See Alex Jones, Rudy Giuliani, the Freedom Convoy truckers in Canada, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Sasha Stone.¹⁵

Each would likely deny that he or she is a hero, or that his or her taking a stand is heroic, but each is proof that:

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.¹⁶

The good news is that all of us can take heart and encouragement from these free and independent thinkers, these visionaries. We can emulate them in our own lives, in our own communities. Here’s how:

• Attend the next caucus in your precinct, and if one is there who is that lone voice of reason challenging the leftist status quo, stand with him or her.

• Attend the next town hall-style meeting of one of your representatives, and if one is there who is challenging said representative as to why he or she is not serving your interests, stand with him or her – maybe this time you are the one with the courage to speak.

The tyranny of the current regime is giving rise to those who have had it up to here with the invasion facilitated by an open southern border, a fentanyl epidemic that makes the Chinese flu look like a localized outbreak of nothing more lethal than the common cold, the hoax of a global pandemic, and inflation that makes those of us who work for a living yearn for the late 1970s – and there are more and more of us, every day.

Thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence.

Until next time…

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1. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29130478/michael-jordan-stands-firm-republicans-buy-sneakers-too-quote-says-was-made-jest]

2. Chances are this was because the franchise owner, at any given time, was also working beside the order-takers up front, the line and fry cooks in the kitchen, and the kid whose job it was to keep the floors, dining areas and restrooms clean and presentable. He had a vested interest not only in running a good operation, but making sure that customers’ experiences were pleasant ones so that they would return again and again, because his stake was financial – he owned that franchise license.

Never mind that in all likelihood, all the employees were teenagers working summer jobs, and if they worked during the school year, they did so on nights and weekends – but it was part-time employment, and they were gaining valuable experience to apply to careers later on – and if anyone did, in fact, wish to make a career out of managing a fast-food restaurant, they did so with an eye on becoming a franchise owner, themselves.

I’m old enough to remember a man in my hometown who ran his own hamburger restaurant and did it well enough that he was able to acquire a Hardee’s franchise, and he ran it as if it were his own – because largely, it was. He provided his family with a nice home on the west side of our little town, and he was able to put both his daughters through college. Not bad for a guy who ran a fast-food joint. Looking back, he was a dinosaur, even then. The economy was changing, technology was advancing, a business needed to grow and to do that, it had to become part of a larger, national organization that was quietly dictating the terms of existence to men who not even a year ago, were sole proprietors in their own communities.

3. A small, vocal minority in any given organization prone to throwing tantrums like a two year-old, now dictating corporate policy for almost every other enterprise of any size.

4. How Ideologues Infiltrated the Arts

5. https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/grub-hub-ceo-issues-e-mail-to-staff-repudiating-trump/

6. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/grubhub-users-plan-boycott-ceo-releases-anti-trump-letter-946433/

7. Not different in the way of one who is on the high end of the functional range of the autism scale, or someone diagnosed with Asperger’s – despite my affection for the sitcom, The Big Bang Theory, these people have been so overrepresented in pop culture, they are that much more insufferable.

8. This is not, “finding one’s tribe” however – that kind of thinking and use of such terminology only further contributes to the Balkanization of the country – I will not be part of it.

9. Not to disparage fraternities or the Greek system, because for every “news” account of dangerous and demeaning hazing, there are untold accounts of the value of membership in such an organization. My late father, for example, was a member of a fraternity for agriculture and agronomy majors. One of my best friends was a member of a fraternity at his university, and the benefits of connections and lifelong friendships cannot be overstated. Also, for many fraternities, members had to maintain a respectable minimum GPA to remain a member in good standing, and residence in the house often wasn’t available until one’s junior or senior year. Yes, I’m sure that some as depicted in the movies, Animal House, and, Back to School exist, but like so much else, the reality is much more mundane and boring.

10. Absent the ability to think critically, one adopts an arbitrary morality, driven by relativism – even the concept of adhering to a fixed moral standard is foreign, and not readily embraced. Right and wrong have no real meaning either in the abstract or in application, and in short order, secular humanism is the altar at which one worships. 

11. https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/11/14/eliminate-required-first-year-writing-course-opinion

12. Say what you will but his observation in re: education was both prescient, and prophetic. Speaking of the powerful, why do you suppose they so fear Trump?
I’ll give Carlin credit for his candor, but I question his integrity – my guess is he’d be one of the sheep believing the propaganda apparatus’ lies about Trump, but if he were even a little intellectually honest, he’d love what Trump is doing to that big club of which we are not members.

13. https://campus-speech.law.duke.edu/campus-speech-incidents/bret-weinstein-evergreen-state-college/

14. https://www.city-journal.org/article/what-to-do-when-youre-canceled

15. https://www.foxnews.com/media/canadian-freedom-convoy-truck-seized-bank-account-frozen

16. Whether this is Orwell’s quote, or Winston Smith’s, the protagonist in his novel, 1984 is immaterial – it is the truth.