Jesus H. What a headline to have to write.
You know, I’ve seen and heard a lot of stuff in my time doing this but I am still amazed – even appalled – at the way phony outrage spreads across the internet, due to the most innocuous statements and comments. This one is a beauty.
I’ve had a dozen emails – from Sevconites, you understand – asking me if I am going to condemn my own club and its shirt makers for their “support for Donald Trump.” First, let me congratulate them on realising there’s a world outside their own bubble. Their sudden interest in politics and political issues is remarkable, but welcome. I look forward to their own disavowal of Puma for the way some of its workers, in Bangladesh, are mistreated in their sweat shops.
See, this is why ignorant people should be monitored for accessing the internet.
A little bit of knowledge really can blow your brains out.
New Balance is in trouble for “endorsing Trump” before the election and for saying they think they can work with him now that he’s been elected.
For the record, the Democratic Party said the same thing.
So did the British government, the Scottish government, the French and German governments … want me to go on?
Business leaders around the world have uttered similar sentiments.
But guess what?
Those things were prevented from becoming international news stories. Know why this one did? Because other sportswear organisations made a song and dance out of it and got it trending on Twitter. So once again, Sevco fans, thank you for following the herd and doing what PR firms wanted you to.
You’re not alone, by the way.
Calls for a New Balance boycott have been heard at other clubs, like Liverpool.
With respect to them and everyone else who’s in a flap over this, people need to just calm down a little bit and take a deep breath.
What’s the real issue here?
New Balance is a US company which has resisted the temptation – rampant across corporate America and the world – to move jobs abroad. They wanted some recognition of that from the Obama administration. They wanted some assistance in competing in a marketplace ruled by global behemoths like Nike and Adidas, who do outsource manufacturing jobs to slave labour economies.
They are in favour of protectionism.
So are a lot of people, and a lot of companies.
You want to know who else they endorsed during the race?
Bernie Sanders, whose stance on trade issues is broadly in line with theirs, and in some ways with Trump’s.
Guess who else they endorsed, after her flip-flop on the issue of the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal?
Yes, only Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton.
They issued a statement, in fact, during the race in which they congratulated all the main parties, including the America Greens, on having broadly comparable positions on that issue.
But none of that is worth a news story.
None of that was going to let people take a wee poke at their rivals, so Everton fans and Manchester United fans and others, as well, of course, as the Sevconites, are delightedly swinging the hammer in the hope that it’ll hit.
No harm in it, I guess.
Just dumb.