OK, so, I’d like to begin with a quote from Oliver Wendel Holmes Jr., one of America’s most famous and influential jurists. He said, “History has to be rewritten because history is the selection of those threads of causes or antecedents that we are interested in.” What Holmes was saying, among other things, is that the historian selects the material that he uses to create the history itself.
History IS storytelling. Now, we have the presupposition that history is TRUE storytelling. We have a cultural expectation that historians are doing their best to present us with the facts, as they were. But anyone who has read broadly and deeply in history, and especially in the philosophy of history, knows that history is not a simple relation of facts. History is a narrative that tries to explain the causes, effects, meaning, and purpose of a select series of events. As Dionysius of Halicarnassus said, “History is philosophy teaching by example.”
History, much to the chagrin of my fellow conservatives, is NOT simply the truth about the past. It is an inquiry into the past which seeks to get at the truth. Again, if you don’t believe me, read two books on any historical event by two different people. The simple fact of the matter is that it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about Julius Caesar or Jesus Christ or Jimmy Carter, when a historian puts pen to paper—or nowadays digits to keyboard—that historian is selecting certain data and omitting other data. It has to be this way. First, because we don’t possess all data. Second, because you can’t write a book about everything. Third, because a lot of information will be irrelevant to the historian’s project.
However, there is a 4th common reason why information is omitted. And that’s what I want us to talk about today. The 4th reason is because sometimes there are data that are either outright counterfactuals, or that undermine or weaken one’s case and so the unscrupulous historian…or in today’s case, journalist…chooses to simply omit these data and go about their merry way.
Here’s what I mean, the CNN article by Nathaniel Meyerson has a purpose and that purpose is not to point to the broader trends in retail stock prices. No. His purpose is to demonstrate that conservative boycotts are not effective. He’s saying that a lot of conservatives are crowing about how Target will be the next woke corporation to fall, but that it simply ain’t so because Target’s actual problems are part of a broader trend in retail sale failures.
So I looked at his arguments and examined the stock prices from May 17—the date HE chose–to the closing price on June 1 the last day he would have closing stockprices for, since his article was published before the closing bell. Now, he’s right that a lot of retail chains have taken hits. Some are part of a long-term trend and not just recent sales slumps. Macy’s for instance has been hemorrhaging stock value for over a year. Dollar General and Dollar Tree also have slumping stock values—almost all of DG’s value was lost over that period on June 1! Dollar Tree has also taken a hit, but Dollar Tree’s value was about this low in March and over the last 5 years, the value is up significantly.
However, most curious was his claim that Walmart’s value was one of the similar big losers. Sure, it lost 1.4% from May 17–June 1, and at its lowest drop in that period the stock took a 2.3% loss. But WM is already back to where it was. And that may have something to do with the fact that WM also sells a lot of groceries and everyday items and relies less on retail than other companies do.
So, let’s just say, for sake of argument, that Mr. Meyerson is right and that the stock value loss that Target has taken has nothing to do with wokery, and special swimsuits, but is just part of a broader retail trend. OK. Let’s entertain that notion. Does that prove the thesis? Does that prove that all the financial losses are part of a trend? It’s hard to say. If you look at their 5-year stock price Target had slow, but consistent stock value growth and then around summer 2020 it started to take off and from June 2020 to August 2021 the value went from about $120 to $260! And a quick review of 5-year trends of other retailers suggest that perhaps these huge stock value swings are the result of the government giving away free money and now inflation coming on the heels of that free money.
So, yes, it is VERY possible that Target’s stock value is simply falling because we’re entering into a period of high inflation without a lot of extra consumer cash lying around.
But that doesn’t prove the thesis. Because his thesis is NOT simply about the causes of Target’s stock value decrease. His thesis is to prove that right-wing boycotts aren’t working. His thesis is to prove that negative public pressure isn’t having any impact. His thesis is that Target can keep flying the rainbow and making Buffalo Bill style swimsuits and that won’t hurt their brand at all. That’s what he’s really trying to prove.
And I think that’s he’s omitting an awful lot of relevant information if that’s what he’s trying to prove.
He’s omitting the possibility that Target is absolutely full of crap. They say that they are getting rid of a bunch of their pride propaganda out of a concern for employee safety. Really? Where are these incidences of far-right extremists violently attacking retail associates? I’m familiar with violence from Trans activists against Christians, but I’m not familiar with the opposite. And even if it has happened, has it happened sufficiently frequently for them to capitulate? I thought that this was Pride Month?! Isn’t visibility more important than worker safety?
You see Target is simply lying. Target may be woke, but they also have learned a lesson from Bud Light!
You see friends, it MAY be the case that Target’s stock value drop is only and entirely caused by a drop in consumer retail demand. That’s possible, and I think that there’s a good case to be made for that argument. What you cannot make a good argument for is that Target’s actions are not at all influenced by conservative boycotts and social media action.
Two things can be true at the same time. It’s possible that Target’s stock price is entirely controlled by market forces independent of their woke politics and the reaction that that has engendered.
It can also be true that Target is seeing the writing on the wall and realizing that there is a right-ward movement in this culture back towards more traditional and conservative values and they want to hedge their bets.
OF COURSE, Target wants to win brownie points with all the woke movers and shakers in public life. Of course, they want to be seen, in America anyways, as allies to the Trans movement and the LGBTQIA+ movement broadly. Of course, they want to virtue signal. Because they think that in America, right now, it’s good for business. And I’m sure there are true-believers in that company that would rather see Target go broke than go unwoke. But the majority of stockholders are, I would guess, primarily interested in making money.
And Target has seen the writing on the wall—they are watching, in real time, the decline and fall of Anheuser-Busch. They are watching Disney destroy itself with its woke policies, race-baiting, conservative-baiting, anti-straight-white-male storytelling. People are sick of Disney and their corrupt values. But more than that, their corrupt values are leading to incompetence. The wokery of Disney actually prevents them from telling a good story because the woke ideology is contrary to reality and human nature. Politically correct fiction never works. It doesn’t matter if it’s communist, or fascist, or wokeist—politically correct stories stink and discerning customers ain’t buying.
All across our culture we’re seeing a shift. It may be short-lived or it may be a revolution, but there is a discernable and sensible shift. People are growing tired of corrupt governments and corrupt corporations. People are growing tired of being force-fed perverse and immoral values. People are growing tired of being made to feel evil because they happen to have dangly genitalia or because of the color of their skin. People are tiring of these things and some of the major corporations are starting to notice, but now they are in a dilemma.
Target is of two minds. On the one hand they want money. On the other they want to continue to be seen as allies. On one hand they like profits, on the other they want to virtue signal.
And this is a problem that the godless face all the time. The godless constantly are in the dilemma of choosing what’s best for them and what they want most—choosing between life in Christ, which they don’t want, or death and damnation in the sin that they do.
But this is not simply a problem for unbelievers.
There are multitudes of Christians who are compromised. There are huge swathes of believers who have fallen in love with the world and who are unwilling or unable to pick a side. On one hand they love the world and the things of the world and they’re terrified of being thought of as an IST or a PHOBE, but on the other hand they want the blessing of God. They want the blessing of God apart from living in such a way as to receive the blessing of God.
Paul talked about how Demas, because he loved the present world, fled from him.
The book of Revelation warns that the cowardly will not inherit the kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus states that those who are ashamed of Him and His word and who deny Him will be denied BY HIM.
Brothers and sisters life is lived with live ammo and there are no take-backs. And you have to pick a side. You can either be with Christ or against Him. But there is no in-between.
We deceived ourselves for a long time—and to be fair we were deceived by Satan as well—Christian lied to themselves thinking that the world wasn’t really all that bad that there aren’t actually Satan and demons that there really isn’t evil in the world and that you don’t really have to hate the world. We lied to ourselves, and more fool we, we believed our own lies. We convinced ourselves that we could love the world and be of the world and love Christ and be of Christ too—but you can’t.
You have to make a choice. You have to pick a side. You can choose to be on the side of righteousness or the side of wickedness, but there is no more sitting on fences. Target wants to sit on the fence—but they’ve chosen their side. They will side with wickedness. They will side with the baby-murder industry. Disney will side with wickedness and perversion and infanticide. They will side with them unless they are forced to stop. And for them the only thing—and maybe not even this—but the only thing that will ever make them stop is going broke. For Bud Light and Target and Disney, their spiritual rock-bottom is losing enough money. And maybe not even that, they may be past repentance.
But what about you friend? Are you in love with the world or are you standing for and living in righteousness. DO you love what God loves and hate what he hates and make it known publicly? Or are you a coward?
We need to be brave—the days of getting by without courage are over. We must be brave. We must pray for courage. We must be willing to lose everything to stand for righteousness—because we just might have to.