Enough with boycotts already

Tucker Carlson is finding that advertisers are abandoning his show because he spoke politically incorrectly about several different groups.  I wish he would publish who is dumping him so I can avoid those products if I want to.  I haven't found such a list yet for the current comments.

Previously, he lost sponsors over remarks on immigrants

As of Wednesday morning, SanDisk, Pfizer, Takeda, CareerBuilder, TD Ameritrade, ScotteVest, United Explorer, Just for Men, Voya, Zenni Optical, IHOP, Jaguar, Pacific Life, Indeed, Bowflex, SmileDirectClub, NerdWallet, Minted, Ancestry and SodaStream have all said they were pulling their ads from the show.

Even though I haven't found a complete list yet and cannot differentiate who dropped him for the more recent comments, I'm not too worried, because I'm not going to suggest that all those companies be generally boycotted in turn.  They have employees who may or may not agree with the corporate decision but who need their jobs and have no control of where the ads run.  They would be punished through job loss when demand goes down for the products and services they provide.  That would be like punishing modern white people for things done a century ago to non-white people, AKA reparations.

I thought the point of advertising was to let potential customers know about a product or service they might want to buy, not to endorse the television program that induces people to watch and hopefully sit through the ads.  Some ads are amusing (e.g., GEICO, Progressive) while others are annoying (e.g., most "male enhancement" ads).  I'm more likely to sit through amusing ones, but I'm not likely to become a GEICO or Progressive customer because I'm satisfied with my current insurance provider.

So if Tucker Carlson has a show that some number of people watch, with viewer demographics that a company wants to get money from, why not advertise on his show?  If a company is too tender of conscience to want customers who may not share its politics, it should realize that perhaps two thirds or more of the population may have different ideologies (40/35/21 conservative/moderate/liberal).  That's a large number of potential customers to lose.

Why not sell to them, take the profits, and donate to some suitable intersectional progressive-socialist candidate (which they will do anyway)?  Otherwise, don't such companies have a moral responsibility to determine a customer's political ideology before accepting the purchase?  Without that, how do they sleep at night knowing they may be taking tainted money from deplorables?

A prudent advertiser would continue to hype his product on Tucker's show.  Criticism could be responded to with remarks about happily taking the money of the hateful viewers and spending it wisely in a politically correct way.  Yes, there would still be criticism, but it would die down over time if it stopped working.  This would allow companies to grow and retain their workers.

Advertising should be about the ratings, not the content.  Money is neither moral nor immoral, and once you get it, you can spend it how you like, but a company, like an individual, must first get it.  (Only a government can spend it before it gets it.)  Advertising helps make that happen.

Don't boycott, advertisers.  Profit from customers you otherwise might never see.

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