Go Tell it on the Grocery Store [Greg Laden's Blog]

The press helped elect Donald Trump. The mainstream press loved itself that false balance, giving absurdly pseudo-even coverage to whatever tripe might be spewed by willfully ignorant conservatives. So, screw them, and we await their apology. Meanwhile, the tabloid press has made its own contribution to the problem. Part of that is impressing on so many minds such crazy crap that a large percentage of Americans (apparently about one half of the actual voters) will believe anything. Or, perhaps, simply don’t care about what is real and what is not.

People are looking for things to do to push back against the President of the Deplorables (POTD) and perhaps the Deplorables themselves. Well, I was just at the grocery store and I got an idea that I think maybe you may like too.

See the cover above? That was one of the tabloids on display at the checkout line. It is anti-Muslim, engenders hate and intolerance, it is racist and, by the way, tells us that we should torture people.

So, I took a copy of the National Enquirer to the manager to complain. I should mention that this particular grocery store is in one of the more conservative districts of Minnesota. The area is represented at the state and federal level by members of the Tea Party. I fully expected the manager to be a Trump supporter, but I didn’t care.

Eventually the Manager came over to the service desk, and I said this:

“Hi. I’m all for the First Amendment and all, but I don’t think this magazine cover should be visible in this store. It is racist, hateful, promotes anti-immigrant feelings and,” pointing to the text about torture, “actually says that we should torture people. I don’t want my young children to see something in the grocery store saying that we should torture people. So, that is my complaint, could you please pass that complaint on to whomever you send complaints to? Thanks.”

The manager, who may or may not have been a Trump supporter, but who was definitely a recent immigrant, I’m pretty sure from Liberia, seemed to appreciate the complaint.

Now, I know some of you may comment that the National Enquirer is not important, that everybody knows it is a fake, that these messages in the checkout line don’t matter. Go ahead and post your comment about that below. I’ll tell you what I think of it when I see it!

The more relevant question is this: Is this a form of activism that can have an impact, and if so, how do we refine the method? If you have thoughts about that, let’s hear them. One thought from me for now: Do bring the magazine to the service desk, and leave it there when you leave. That adds a bit more exposure to the act, as copies of horrid tabloids end up piling up around that location.

I think it can have an impact. If stores actually do take tabloids off the display racks, that’s a win. It sends a message to the tabloid press as well as the mainstream press that they need to clean up their acts. I don’t actually expect that to happen.

It will send a message to the managers of stores, and to the extent that they have any control over anything, could reduce the total amount of bad, hate-supporting messaging out there. I don’t actually expect that to happen either, because, I suspect, the managers don’t have any control over whether or not there are copies of the National Enquirer or other deplorable literature in their stores, or where it is placed.

The target, it seems to me, is at the higher level than the manager. If the higher level execs at major outlets start getting a lot of complaints about this sort of tabloid drek, and those complaints get enough attention, it could then send an indirect but firm message to the tabloids. As it is, the tabloids tend to go beyond what is reasonable. With someone like Donald Trump in office, what is beyond reasonable just went over the moon. It would be nice if the tabloids could do something other than considering Trump to be a ticket to go farther than any tabloid has ever gone before. It would be nice if the tabloids that did so suffered and backed off. It would be nice if we actually had a conversation about what constitutes utter bullshit and what constituted a reasonable attempt at being a member of a semi-civilized species on a planet with possible signs of incipient intelligent life.

~~~~~

BIN NOTE: If by now you haven’t figured out that Facebook and Google are in cahoots with the corrupt government, then I feel for you, but for those who are well aware of the issues it’s high time you switched over to Seen.life. It is a website that is similar to Facebook but without all the censorship.