Nike vs. In-N-Out: The silent majority has spoken

Not all forays into politics are equal. Two companies in the news in the past few days highlight this lesson. This is the story of In-N-Out versus Nike. And the Silent Majority has spoken.

Let’s start with In-N-Out Burger. Liberals decided to call for a national boycott because In-N-Out committed the sin of donating to the Republican Party. How idiotic is the idea of boycotting a company for making a political donation? Almost every company, even the small businesses you buy from, is run by someone who has a political opinion.

The right to have that opinion is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It’s what so many millions of young Americans have died for on bloody battlefields all over the world.

Most businesses — or their CEOs — make political contributions. Participating in politics is as American as apple pie. Most of us never know the politics of the businesses we buy from. Or care. If I like a product, I’ll buy it. I don’t care who you donate to. But boycotting businesses who give to the Republican Party is idiotic.

First, the GOP controls the presidency, Senate and House. It has a large majority of the country’s governors and lieutenant governors. It controls the majority of state legislatures. The GOP dominates America.

Yet liberals and the liberal media paint political conservatives as extremists. Liberals are kidding themselves. Pure delusion. Our views are common sense and mainstream. You’re the radical, extreme ones. You’re the ones who are out of touch.

That’s why we are called the Silent Majority.

Second, the GOP is pro-business and pro-capitalism. President Donald Trump (just like Ronald Reagan before him) has been great for the economy, jobs, small businesses and the average middle-class American worker.

So how can it be a sin for a business to donate to the GOP? We are benefiting from GOP policies. So are the majority of our customers. That’s precisely why consumer confidence is at its highest level in 18 years.

Third, polls show small- business owners are at their second-highest level of optimism in modern history. Only Reagan made them happier, and that was almost four decades ago.

So, you think you’re going to boycott all 28 million small businesses in America? For donating to the party that’s great for the economy and helps our businesses succeed? Good luck.

That could be why the In-N-Out boycott failed so disastrously. No one cares about a political donation.

But now we come to corporation No. 2. Nike. They just made a disastrous decision. And they will pay for it with a massive sales decline and billions of dollars in lost stock value. Nike may have fatally damaged itself this week.

Nike didn’t make a political donation. Nike just made former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick the face of its company. That is a combination of stupidity, ignorance, offensiveness and tragic thinking. Nike just branded itself with a person half of America (and all 63 million Trump voters) considers a vile, ungrateful America-hater.

Now that’s bad business.

Here’s a guy who had a $126 million contract but thinks America is unfair to minorities. Here’s a guy who figuratively spits in the faces of veterans and cops — and on our flag. What a joke. What a clueless hypocrite. What a disgrace to America.

You’d think Nike would have learned from the NFL’s terrible decision to allow players to kneel for our national anthem. The NFL lost hundreds of millions of dollars with massive ratings declines, empty seats and lost merchandise sales. Kaepernick was the face of that disaster.

As I write this column, Nike stock is down, social media show Americans burning Nike gear and millions of people are vowing to never buy anything from Nike again. Now the same ingrate who almost brought down the NFL will cause massive damage to Nike.

In-N-Out is in great shape. Nike just destroyed a billion-dollar brand. The Silent Majority has spoken.

Wayne Allyn Root (Wayne@ROOTforAmerica.com) is host of the nationally syndicated “WAR Now: The Wayne Allyn Root Show.” Listen from 3 to 6 p.m. daily at 790 Talk Now and watch at 5 p.m. on Newsmax TV — now on DirecTV and Dish. His R-J columns run Thursdays and Sundays.