You know — maybe there was a reason administrators at Target made the ill-advised decision of announcing its rollback of DEI initiatives and programs to promote Black businesses shortly after the second inauguration of commander-in-anti-DEI-propaganda, President Donald Trump. Perhaps the reason target execs were so confident making their announcement just after Trump made a big show of signing sweeping anti-DEI executive orders is that they had just donated $1 million to his inauguration.
According to the Minnesota Star Tribune, Target has, in the past, donated to both Democratic and Republican causes, but it had never donated funds for a presidential inauguration on either side of the aisle before this year. A recent filing with the Federal Election Commission, which revealed Target’s donation, also exposed dozens of other companies that donated to Trump’s vanity party featuring Elon Musk’s Nazi salute, such as Amazon, Delta Air Lines, Walmart, SAM Nutrition, Pilgrim’s Pride and Abbott Laboratories.
None of those companies is likely to catch as much backlash as Target will, though.
The Minnesota-based retail chain just hadn’t anticipated that becoming a symbol of Trump’s “I Heart Diversity Hate” agenda would result in its CEO practically begging Al Sharpton for a meetup because its stores are losing foot traffic for like a dozen consecutive weeks due to a successful boycott campaign.
In fact, according to Retail Brew, Caliber, a brand reputation analytics and strategy company, found that the percentage of consumers who would recommend Target to other potential shoppers decreased by 11 points, which Caliber CEO Shahar Silbershatz attributes to Target apparently caving to Trump’s unofficial anti-DEI marching orders.
From Retail Brew:
According to data shared exclusively with Retail Brew, Caliber asked respondents in January whether they agreed with the statement, “I would recommend Target to others,” 49% agreed. But in February, following Target announcing at the end of January that it would eliminate its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, the percentage who agreed dropped 11 points, to 38%.
Considering how much coverage Target has received for backtracking on DEI, Silbershatz suggested that’s why Target took such a reputational hit.
“The biggest thing that was reported around Target at that time was the DEI policy, so it’s likely that,” Silbershatz said.
Welp, we hope Target has been enjoying the “find out” stage of its “f**k around” activities, because it’s probably not going to blow over any time soon.
Sad.
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