4-10-25

There’s an old phrase….a part of pop culture that people say all the time…..it is

usually stated when someone has done something wrong that did nothing but hurt

themselves unnecessarily…..when that happens folks will say it was “a self-

inflicted wound”…..what is that? Where did that phrase come from?.....according

to the Oxford English Dictionary the phrase dates back as far as the 1600’s…..in

more modern times it was meant as a description of a soldier trying to get taken off

the battlefield…..in WWI it became so common for soldiers to inflict self-inflicted

wounds on themselves to be taken off the line that it became a capital offense….if

you were found guilty of a self-inflicted wound you were subject to court martial

and execution for treason…..it’s an amazing thing to think that someone would

become so desperate that they would do something that drastic, injure themselves

intentionally with a self-inflicted wound……but more often than not the use of the

term simply describes someone who did something unilaterally and it went badly

and now they are suffering the consequences and it was all their own fault….

And that my friends is the essence of the modern day version in corporate

America…..we call it “go woke, go broke”…..you heard me….go woke go broke

is the same thing as a self-inflicted wound…..where corporate culture forgets its

way and spends to much time virtue signaling that it loses its profitibality…..where

work culture invades the province of the boardroom and suddenly the shareholders

who invested in the company sit back and look at their shareholder reports and

wonder what in the world happened…..but it turns out that the ruination of the

company was a self-inflicted wound because the leadership thought it would be

great to go woke and all they did was go broke…..

The liberal left tries desperately to claim that its not true….that companies should

be out there signaling their support of left wing causes….well, if that’s your base

then go for it….I’m sure the rainbow flag manufacturers know who their audience

is….but generally speaking you have to actually KNOW your audience…..

A survey by PR and marketing agency Method Communications was released back in

2023 and claimed that 67% of Americans say their purchases are affected by a brand's

stance, while 42% say they have stopped shopping with a particular brand because of

its position on an issue. More than one-third of respondents say they pay attention to a

firm's views on social issues……okay….but I’m not sure that’s the win they were

looking for here….I’d say it was just the opposite…the consumer public wants a good

product or service….they don’t want a lecture…and if that survey is to believed then it

would stand to reason that just as many people won’t buy from companies who spend

all their time focusing on issues that offend their consumers…..it’s a self-inflicted

wound…..go woke go broke….

The poster child for the self-inflicted wound is Anheuser Busch putting

transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney on the Bud Light can….Bud Light went from

being the top selling beer product in America to suddenly not being able to be

given away at a frat party or baseball park anywhere…..it was an epic self inflicted

wound and it wound up costing the company upwards of $1.4 billion according to

some reports…..but still the wokists don’t get it…..still they virtue signal and

pound their pigeon chests and squeak their squeaky cries of diversity and the

company goes broke…..

The latest reports on Harley Davidson show that…..the American legend that has

long been the epitome of the spirit of the country….an employee owned rock star

brand whose very name evoked images of wildness, freedom, and

ruggedness….Easy Rider……well they brought in a woke European guy to serve

as the CEO and he promptly decided to go the way of Dylan Mulvaney and create

the Bud Light of motorcycles…..pushing the company to go electric, which was

later abandoned….He also imposed policies for divisive employee identity groups,

for demands to buy components from suppliers who emphasize their “identities”

instead of product quality, and for awarding promotions and jobs according to

criteria set up by a pro-transgender outside advocacy group……internal policies

were sending White men to White male-only diversity training;…. supporting

legislation that "would allow men into girls' bathrooms, sports and locker rooms";

and "an all-ages pride event that featured a ‘rage room’ next to ‘draq queen story

time.'"…..it was woke on parade and Harley sales plummeted….it got so bad that

Harley wasn’t even welcome at the Sturgis Motorcycle gathering……that CEO is

now gone by the way…..he had to…..Harley values were plummeting

They aren’t the only example…..look at what is happening with the Kennedy

Center….the Kennedy Center…..the crown jewel of the arts….subsidized heavily

by US Tax Dollars…..and wacky as a $3 dollar bill…..it was just a few years ago,

during the first Trump administration that Vice President Pence went to the

Kennedy Center for a presentation of Hamilton….and the woke cast decided it was

their job to lecture him in front of the whole audience…..captive to the moment,

with no way to step out, the woke cast began to call out the VP, saying, “We, sir —

we — are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new

administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend

us and uphold our inalienable rights,” he said. “We truly hope that this show has

inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of

us.”…..because everyone knows that stopping the show to lecture the Vice

President on issues related to climate change, diversity, and alarmism is really

helpful to the cause…..Well, enter Trump 2.0….he fired the Board at the Kennedy

Center, because he can…..he replaced them……they recently announced that they

could no longer fund their Office of Social Impact….that’s the office that

coordinated for Pride Month expositions and claimed to serve “underrepresented

audiences”…..which is just woke verbiage for woke causes…..so the alarmists

went nuts…..it’s a crushing blow they screamed!....the Kennedy Center….what

shall we do….well, in the wake of the wokeness being surgically removed the

Kennedy Center just set a major attendance record….how about that?....you mean

they put on a show, without all the wokeness, and the people flocked to it…..yep!

that’s exactly what I mean….the work culture at Kennedy won’t be lecturing from

the stage anymore….they were on the verge of being so woke as to go broke and

now they’re back…..how about that?

But perhaps nothing personifies the self inflicted wound of go woke go broke as

much as Disney…..just when you think they’ve learned they’re lesson they bite the

poisoned apple of wokeness once again…..you think they would learn….but no,

they spent $250 million making an epically woke version of Snow White….and

it’s bombing…..like atom bomb bombing…..like cratering out the earth

bombing…..Snow White has now set records as one of the worst major

productions openings in Disney history…..but it was all a self inflicted

wound…..what were they thinking…..Rachel Zigler, who played Snow White is

not white as snow….she is dark complexioned and doesn’t fit….but she’s also an

insufferable Hollywood elitist who turned away audiences with politically correct

comments about the movie….saying such things as it was not going to be about

love, inferring that Prince Charming was a misogynist, and generally turning off

the audiences who still love the original movie classic of their childhoods…..the

movie makers at Disney also decided it was politically incorrect to use

Dwarves….at least at first, as they chose a “diverse” group of woodland creatures

who represented a broader cross section of America….it’s a fairy tale! It doesn’t

have to represent everyone!....that’s the point…..animals don’t talk either, but we

still like Mickey Mouse!.....the movie has tanked and once again Disney is trying

to pick up the pieces of one of their most expensive productions in modern history

becoming their record loss of all history…..the epitome of a self-inflicted

wound….the go woke go broke thing is still very real…..

Corporate America needs to get back to doing what it is good at….making goods

and services that people actually want to pay for….honoring their shareholders and

long time supporters by giving lecture free quality productions the utmost

attention…..it’s actually okay for a for-profit company to make a profit…but you

don’t make a profit by going broke…..

Self-inflicted wounds…..go woke go broke…..

That’s a wrap for the Rightside Way……