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If someone asked me to join a boycott against Coca-Cola, Delta, JPMorgan, CBS, Citigroup, Cisco, UPS, and Merck, I’d probably say, “Sure, I guess.” It’d be pretty easy for me, really, since I already spend about 0.0% of my income with those corporations.
If the person asking me to join such a boycott were Donald J. Trump … well, maybe I’d give it a second thought. I’d at least have to know why.
Last week, Trump summoned his followers to ban these and other “woke companies,” as he called them, over their pushback against Georgia’s new voter suppression law. It remains to be seen how many Trump supporters will take the boycott summons seriously.
Also on Trump’s list of boycottable corporations: Major League Baseball (MLB).
That’s right. Baseball. One of the cornerstone symbols of the American experience — along with apple pie, the automobile, and hot dogs. No president has ever issued a more unpatriotic call-to-action than boycotting baseball.
So, what specifically did MLB do to incur the ex-president’s wrath? In response to Georgia’s new voting law, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that the 2021 All-Star Game would be moved from Atlanta to Denver saying, “Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box.”
While activism is not exactly MLB’s hallmark, this is not the first time professional baseball has taken a stand for justice. After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr, in 1968, Maury Wills, Willie Stargell, and Roberto Clemente of the Pittsburgh Pirates convinced their teammates to sit out an exhibition game and the first two regular-season games. That inspired other teams to do the same, and the start of the 1968 season was delayed by a few days.
Notably, the Pirates at that time had the most racially diverse team in the MLB, with thirteen Latino and Black players on the 1971 roster. The Pirates won the World Series that year. Perhaps even more notably, on September 1 of 1971, the Pirates fielded the first-ever all-Black/Latino starting lineup. Nobody complained. In fact, the world barely noticed. Of course, Twitter hadn’t been invented and Donald Trump wasn’t president at the time.
To its credit, MLB has again taken action against racial injustice. In response, besides Trump’s call for a boycott, other Republican heavies have weighed in.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell threatened “serious consequences” for corporations that retaliate against Republican-led efforts to pass new state election laws. Maybe one of those “serious consequences” would be that McConnell decides to forgo campaign contributions from corporations? Don’t hold your breath.
Even worse, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declined to throw out the first pitch at a Texas Rangers game. Ouch. That had to hurt.
And the pillars of political decorum, Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz, called for Congress to end MLB’s antitrust exemption. Ok, so that might hurt, except that with Democrats in control of the Senate, the proposal is going nowhere.
Sure, the voter suppression bills passed in Georgia and many other states are bad for democracy, and it’s encouraging to see so many individuals, businesses, and institutions speaking out against them. But don’t lose sight of the fact that Republicans have been thriving (i.e., winning) on voter suppression for decades.
What’s worse than these bills? Three things quickly come to mind: the Electoral College, the US Senate filibuster, and gerrymandering.
Some pundits say this wave of election bills won’t be so bad, that they might even backfire on Republicans. An example cited is Fayette County, Iowa, where nearly 80% of registered voters turned out last fall. Fayette used to be a swing county. It’s now solidly Republican, and the 2020 voter surge clearly helped Republican candidates. So, it’s reasonable to ask how making it more difficult to vote might impact a Republican stronghold.
And voter turnout matters. There’s no doubt that what transpired in Fayette County gave Trump a stronger showing in 2020 than he had in 2016 — even though Biden collected more votes there than Hillary Clinton did four years earlier.
More pointedly, in Iowa’s First Congressional District (of which Fayette County is a part), Democratic incumbent Abby Finkenauer received 400 more votes than she did in 2018. Yet she still lost by over 10,000 votes. Why? Because the Republican candidate, Ashley Hinson, got 1,800 more votes in 2020 than the previous Republican candidate in 2018.
Sure, high turnout often helps Democrats — but it can absolutely help Republicans as well.
So, will the voter suppression laws passed in Iowa, Georgia, and elsewhere turn out as bad as many Democrats fear? Hard to say. My guess is yes. Republican strategists are brilliant. Brilliant and evil. They wouldn’t be pushing these kind of laws if they didn’t have strong evidence that the changes will benefit them.
Freedom-loving, patriotic Americans — which includes MLB and Coca-Cola, I guess — are rightfully critical of this new wave of voter suppression. It should be opposed in the streets, in the courts, and in corporate board rooms.
And yes, we need to end the filibuster, the Electoral College, and gerrymandering. But in Iowa, as in many rural states, with voter turnout at a record high, the Democratic Party has a much bigger problem than any single electoral reform. But that’s a much deeper conversation than we can manage today. Stay tuned. — Ed Fallon
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(02:00) As baseball season kicks off, it’s … Donald Trump vs the MLB;
(16:05) Challenging the myth of “clean” natural gas, with Freedom Malik, Renewable Energy Advocate for CLAM (Clean Air Muscatine);
(28:59) Amazon strong arms its way to defeating unionization effort, with Charlie Wishman, president, Iowa Federation of Labor;
(41:37) Dairy industry’s net-zero commitment, with Dr. Jamie Jonker, Vice President of Sustainability & Scientific Affairs, National Milk Producers Federation;
(52:13) Companion Planting, with Kathy Byrnes, Birds & Bees Urban Farm.
Watch the conversation with Kathy Byrnes on our YouTube channel.
Please support the local businesses and non-profits who make this program possible. Click on their logos elsewhere and visit Story County Veterinary Clinic, Bold Iowa, and Birds & Bees Urban Farm.
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Ed Fallon