Our President-Elect Really Has No Earthly Idea What a Boycott Is
Posted on November 20th, 2016 by Adam-Troy CastroAs President-Elect, Donald Trump is already demonstrating that he has absolutely no idea how to ignore or finesse a small embarrassment until it goes away, and giving those of us appalled by his election reason to hope for the results when, as happens to all Presidents, he suffers a major public relations crisis.
Now he’s urging his followers to boycott HAMILTON, thus giving further publicity to the show whose actors gave Mike Pence a firm talking to.
What is darkly amusing about this is that he appears to have absolutely no idea what a boycott is or how it works.
To successfully boycott something, you need to have a history of using it.
The Montgomery bus boycott, during which the black population of that city refused to ride segregated buses, was as effective as it was because black people had been using the buses before, and the system actually did depend on their financial support. It wouldn’t have been successful if the boycott had only gained traction among folks who drove to work in their own cars.
The boycott of Barilla pasta, during which users of that food staple stopped buying it out of disgust for racial comments from representatives of the company, made its sales plummet. It wouldn’t have been successful if it only gained traction among folks who never ate gluten.
The boycott of the Dixie Chicks by radio stations that had previously been playing their music put very real pressure on the band. It wouldn’t have been successful if it had only gained traction on the weather channel.
On the other hand, if you never ever go to the movies and only see the ones you do see on free TV, then virtuous declarations that you’re boycotting Mel Gibson accomplish nothing but make you look stupid.
I’m a science fiction and horror writer who has often blogged about political subjects. From time to time some troll who misspells as many words as possible announces to me that he’s never heard of me anyway and that he will be boycotting my work. I examine this position statement, calculate the infinitesimal odds that this fellow ever would have picked up any of my books – especially when internal evidence documents that he likely picks up damn few and pays for even fewer – and, despite desperately needing more sales, lose not a moment’s sleep. He is not boycotting me. He is simply attaching an ideological tag to his prior total unfamiliarity with me.
And so we have HAMILTON, a raging hit stage musical sold out for years in advance, that you likely cannot get a seat for even if you walk up to the box office with a couple of thousand dollars to burn for the purpose, a show so successful that the merchandise store is a permanent installation in the theatre district.
Donald Trump thinks that he can terrify the folks behind it by urging his supporters to a boycott when HAMILTON could run for years and be the most successful musical in history if its entire ticket-selling lifetime captured just one tenth of a percent of the people who voted for Hillary.
It could be damn successful selling tickets only to those for voted for Gary Johnson.
And that’s not even the silly part.
His call to boycott HAMILTON assumes that his supporters nationwide are all about going to see Manhattan hip-hop musicals at four hundred dollars a pop.
They aren’t. The occasional Pence anomaly aside, many of them would sneer at the very idea – let alone the cost – of buying a ticket to a Broadway show, any Broadway show. That’s not a slam on them in particular. It happens to be true of most people. The majority of folks who live in Manhattan and surrounding boroughs have never bought a ticket to a Broadway show, ever. It’s a rarefied pastime, both culturally and financially. Not to mention that almost all of America, and therefore most of the Trump electorate, is not in any geographical position to go. If you live in Montana, seeing HAMILTON is likely not in your weekend plans. It just isn’t.
Of those Trump voters who do make it to Manhattan from time to time and would buy a ticket to some Broadway show, most wouldn’t race to buy a ticket to this particular Broadway show. Can you imagine the folks you saw at those rallies wetting themselves at the idea of seeing early American history re-enacted with a racially diverse cast? That’s the Trump Demographic, all right!
But what’s going to happen is that they’re all going to receive his call for a boycott and sit right at home before the flickering light of their televisions and congratulate each other for boycotting HAMILTON, a show they wouldn’t have seen even if they had been transported to Manhattan, handed a pair of free tickets and a backstage pass, and offered a blow job by the world’s greatest practitioner of the art if they went. The self-congratulation for boycotting this musical is going to be loud even among those who don’t even buy tickets to movies at their local multiplex, at one-fiftieth the cost. Look at me, I’m making a major point!
It’s really like me, the guy who has despised Trump for years, thinking he’s personally making a major point by declaring that he’ll never buy a condo in a Trump building. Yeah. Like the opportunity will ever come up. What’s hurting his enterprises, still, is aversion to his businesses by people horrified by the prospect of him as President, who were contributing to his bottom line before. Not me. My “boycott” means nothing.
Look at me, I’m boycotting the Russian ballet.
Nobody putting on a Russian Ballet knows it, but give me a high five.
“I’m boycotting HAMILTON!”
Yeah, yeah. Good luck with that. Let me know how it works out.
What Trump is offering his followers, with this imbecilic charge, is the chance to feel unified against their continued lack of support of an enterprise they wouldn’t have supported in the first place.