Major League Baseball's annual All-Star Game is being played tonight. This year's showcase event is in Denver, not Atlanta as planned, due to MLB's fecklessness and ignorance in the face of a "progressive" mob. By way of background, the state of Georgia passed an elections law (supported by most Georgians) that the organized Left simply declared to be "Jim Crow 2.0," totally independent of the facts. We've written fairly extensively about the lies they told, and about the hypocrisy of many of those pushing the lies. We've also pointed out the pitiful double standards of MLB itself, which hosts its headquarters and Hall of Fame in a state with more restrictive voting laws -- and where this recent electoral embarrassment played out. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp told me that when he personally offered to answer questions and cut through the spin about the law he signed in a conversation with MLB's commissioner, he was rebuffed. The league, evidently not interested in factual information or context, simply pulled up its stakes and shifted the midsummer classic to a much whiter city. For "justice," or whatever.
This knee-jerk move, encouraged by the President of the United States, represented one of the more egregious examples of corporate wokery, wherein major US companies and institutions make decisions aimed at virtue signaling and appeasing radical factions. Ahead of tonight's game -- which I do not intend to watch, just as I've significantly curtailed my MLB viewership this season -- several groups are making sure to remind fans of Major League Baseball's actions. Reagan already mentioned the RNC's ad, which will air on Fox during the game, and will also air on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox's Atlanta affiliate. In case you missed it, here it is:
In addition to the GOP spot, Consumers Research' -- which has assailed companies like Nike and American Airlines over politicization -- will run ads nationally on cable and in a number of markets (including Atlanta and New York) throughout. One targets MLB itself; the other hits Ticketmaster. Each one specifically names the respective organizations' leaders, with all the trappings of a political attack ad:
Public polling has shown that a substantial majority of US voters oppose corporations wading into culture wars, yet some powerful incentives cut against public opinion. Groups like Consumers' Research are working to warn corporate leaders that there will be pain associated with ignoring the silent majority. Other organizations are joining the fray, as well, including the New Tolerance Campaign. The Wall Street Journal recently profiled a self-made millionaire who discovered his conservatism while studying at Harvard, then founded a successful tech company. He's currently devoting his passions to combatting corporate wokeism:
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[His worldview] drove him to step down in January as CEO at Roivant Sciences—the drug-development company that made him rich—and write “Woke, Inc,” a book that takes a scathing look at “corporate America’s social-justice scam.” (It will be published in August.) Mr. Ramaswamy recently watched the movie “Spotlight,” which tells the story of how reporters at the Boston Globe exposed misconduct (specifically, sexual abuse) by Catholic priests in the early 2000s. “My goal in ‘Woke, Inc.’ is to do the same thing with respect to the Church of Wokeism.” He defines “wokeism” as a creed that has arisen in America in response to the “moral vacuum” created by the ebbing from public life of faith, patriotism and “the identity we derived from hard work.” He argues that notions like “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion” and “sustainability” have come to take their place. “Our collective moral insecurities,” Mr. Ramaswamy says, “have left us vulnerable” to the blandishments and propaganda of the new political and corporate elites, who are now locked in a cynical “arranged marriage, where each partner has contempt for the other.” Each side is getting out of the “trade” something it “could not have gotten alone.”
The battle is being waged, primarily, by the Left -- on which figures ranging from leftist Kevin Drum to liberal Andrew Sullivan to conservative Peggy Noonan all agree. But the Right seems less inclined than ever to unilaterally disarm, and thus the battle is joined. I'll leave you with this pushback against the underlying alleged 'attack' on voting and democracy that ostensibly precipitated MLB's sniveling and pandering choice to rip the All Star Game away from Atlanta:
Ignore the Hysteria — Voting Has Never Been Easier https://t.co/6HHOMCys1R
— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) July 12, 2021
In reality, it’s never been easier to vote. It is arguably at least as easy to vote in this country — in Texas and Georgia and other places not so much in the news — as it is in almost any country in the world that holds free elections...All but a single European nation requires a government-issued photo ID to vote, something Democrats would eliminate with the bill they call the “For the People Act.” Even in Estonia, often praised as the exemplar of a sound voting system, a person needs state-issued ID. Estonia’s population, incidentally, is not quite as large as that of the city of Dallas. Instituting an Estonian-style system in the U.S. would also mean nationalizing all elections for 239 million eligible voters online. Considering that 67 percent of Democrats believe that Russians tampered with their votes in 2016, and 65 percent of Republicans believe that the 2020 results were illegitimate, you can imagine the conspiracies that would bloom after an Internet-based election.
This week, Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe tweeted: “Call me crazy, but I think it should be easier to vote than it should be to buy a gun.” We hear this kind of preposterous assertion all the time. To buy a handgun — a constitutional right, by the way — one needs government identification and a criminal background check conducted by the FBI. In states such as New York or Maryland, laws are far more prohibitive. If obtaining a ballot was half as difficult as obtaining a legal firearm, Democrats would be completely justified in calling it suppression. It is far easier to vote than to buy a gun. Voting is also arguably easier than sending a FedEx package or signing up for Netflix or going to a ballgame.
Requiring photo ID to pick up tickets at Major League Baseball games is commonplace, it must also be noted. Harsanyi is right about Europe's voter ID laws, which even many Democrats are finally pretending they don't oppose, even after loudly opposing voter ID laws for years. The polling really is that lopsided. But at least one prominent Democrat hasn't gotten the memo yet, or is perhaps a bit slow on the uptake. This soundbyte is...really something:
Kamala Harris absurdly says it’s “almost impossible” for rural Americans to photocopy their ID pic.twitter.com/J94IuGBFLv
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 10, 2021
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