RACE IN AMERICA - Trump and Faith

To these fine leaders, Trump only cares about Trump.  In his warped mind there is only room for Trump, forget ethics or morality.

"2 faith leaders on Trump, racism and toning down incendiary rhetoric" PBS NewsHour 8/15/2019

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SUMMARY:  In times of division, people often turn to faith leaders for guidance and support.  Jeffrey Brown spoke to two such leaders, Rev. Mariann Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, and Richard Land president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary, about navigating the current landscape of polarized national politics, what they think of President Trump's rhetoric and how to promote unity.

POLITICS - Our Broken Congress

"The great struggle of getting anything done when partisanship reigns" PBS NewsHour 7/21/2017

SUGGESTION:  The leadership of each party, in each branch of Congress (Senate and House), walk out the National Mall and and play Russian Roulette with a revolver with 2 bullets.  The survivors win and get to have their agenda. 😉

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SUMMARY:  Congress these days has an obvious theme, more blame than legislation.  Congressional Republicans have taken a sharply partisan route in their health care reform efforts, with multiple failed and contentious attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.  How did we end up with such an extreme partisan divide?  Lisa Desjardins looks back.

TRUMP EFFECT$ - Companies and Polarized Politics

"How should companies navigate polarized politics in the Trump era?" PBS NewsHour 2/9/2017

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SUMMARY:  How should companies navigate the new political climate under President Trump?  From political Super Bowl ads to Trump-brand boycotts, we seem to be seeing the rise of a new partisan consumerism.  Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports.

PAUL SOLMAN (NewsHour):  The Super Bowl, politicized this year through ads, Airbnb branding itself as immigration-friendly, Coca-Cola recycling a 2014 ad that also suggests an alternative definition of American patriotism.

And in the larger world, backlash from Uber customers over President Trump's immigration ban, #deleteUber, that ultimately forced its CEO to step down from a White House advisory panel.

Nordstrom dropping the first daughter's clothing line back in January, with Neiman Marcus following suit, prompting a tweet from President Trump yesterday:  “My daughter has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom.  She is a great person, always pushing me to do the right thing.  Terrible.”

So are we seeing the rise of a new partisan consumerism, echoing the country's polarized politics?

We invited two Harvard Business School professors, Nancy Koehn and Len Schlesinger, to answer the question.

NANCY KOEHN, Professor, Harvard Business School:  What we're seeing now is, I think, the culmination or perhaps the next logical step of a long series of events and trends among consumers, many of them previously alienated from the political process, where they use their dollars to vote on social, political and economic issues.

LEN SCHLESINGER, Professor, Harvard Business School:  And relative to today's administration, there are countless examples of how that's being played out on a daily basis.

So we have the scenario of the Ivanka merchandising line, which has now been essentially removed from Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, a hashtag, #boycottNordstrom, hashtag #boycottNeimanMarcus for actually tossing our Ivanka out of the store, and the same on the other side of the equation.

PAUL SOLMAN:  So, boycotts, consumer boycotts have been used to express political beliefs and to try to affect political outcomes for…

NANCY KOEHN:  For at least 50 or 60 years, right, and probably going back farther than that.

What, again, is new, I think, Paul, is the reach and the speed.  And that's all running on the high-octane fuel of social media.  And I think the other thing that's new and different is the emotional energy that social media allows.  These are all businesses that have a very big word of mouth component to them.  They have a big ego or identity component to them.

So the ability of these boycotts to affect those aspects of business success, consumer loyalty, word of mouth, brand power, that's a big deal.