Support is waning for corporate involvement and advocacy around many of the country's biggest hot-button social issues, according to a new Public Affairs Council survey shared first with Axios.
Why it matters: No business wants to become a political football ahead of the 2024 election.
I owned a couple of small businesses and never saw the point of taking sides on political issues. Personally, of course, but not the business or myself when representing the business., which includes my personal facebook account which had 2,500 people from an industry I was in. Prospective or current customers weren't looking to the companies for political advice... they wanted us to do our jobs for them. From a practical level it seemed like taking a stand on divisive issues would lose us more customers than we'd gain.
That's the thing though, it's almost never relevant. I don't care what Budweiser thinks about the LGBTQ community. It makes no difference if Target supports abortion rights or not. These things are entirely divorced from the business these companies are trying to carry out and yet they take up a sizable chunk of public discourse and advertising space.
Politics taking over every aspect of culture is insufferable and this seems like a great place to start when it comes to making politics less combative. Let's stop making a taco purchase a political statement.
I do want to know where a company stands on social issues. If they don’t want/don’t care about the people I care about t h en they don’t need my money either.
Sure, but it could harm a business my size. I wasn't interested in discriminating among customers based on their political views. But if I even responded to memes about politics on Facebook i could end up with colleagues or store owners not wanting to work with me. Stuff specifically relevant to the business, sure, of course take a position on that.
Instead of virtue signaling, let them put out quarterly public reports about what they donate to what causes and politicians. I’m holding my breath, of course.