It’s about time the extreme left’s social media-fueled purity tests accomplished something besides helping Republicans win elections.
Something more useful than, for example, getting insufficiently liberal college professors fired, canceling comedians for being funny or, here in New York City, asking white high school students to discover their precise level of racism through a white supremacy chart.
Shortly after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, a public roster began circulating that, in the business community, has become known simply as “The List.” Started by Yale University on Feb. 28, the evolving cyber-document calls out companies still doing business in Russia despite its unrelenting assault on a sovereign democracy.
Putin, meet purity test.
In an era of “look how noble I am” social media posturing and shameless corporate spin, the list provides an important reality check: It differentiates companies who’ve rightly closed up shop in Russia from those who’ve made hypocritical, virtue-signaling gestures — such as donating to Ukrainian relief efforts — while continuing to profit by doing business in Putin’s pariah of a country.
The list also is tiered, distinguishing between corporate entities who’ve made a “clean break” with Russia, up to and including total divestment, from those who’ve taken less dramatic measures such as suspending operations indefinitely or, less encouragingly, simply scaling back operations.
Finally, the list calls out corporations who’ve shut their eyes, stuffed cotton in their ears and held on, defying morality for continued profits from a nation that thinks nothing about starting World War III and threatening nuclear holocaust. Here, categories include the non-committal “Buying Time” and the smugly status quo “Digging In.”
Granted, some of the list’s names can be reasonably excused. For example, AstraZeneca is a global pharmaceuticals company that cannot be expected to suddenly stop producing and distributing life-saving medicines just because a megalomaniac invaded his neighbor. We want to punish Putin, not everyday Russian citizens. Nor is it wise for social media companies to shutter their platforms at a time when principled dissent must spread throughout Russia.
However, other companies’ continued presence in Russia ranges from suspicious to downright inexcusable. For example, while McDonald’s has closed its locations in Russia, Subway has not. Russian citizens need medicines and basic goods and services; they do not need to “eat fresh.”
These “still operating” sections span the serious to the silly. Per the former, a company called IPG Photonics somehow thinks it should still be selling its high-performance fiber lasers in a country uniquely likely to coopt and corrupt such technologies. Far more frivolously, unless the good people at Cinnabon have a patriotic plan to give Putin and his cronies Type 2 diabetes, it really has no business remaining open in Russia.
Other companies wised up after initially being called out for their callousness. For example, it took public flogging for LG Electronics to conclude it shouldn’t be selling its various audio/visual products and components in a belligerent, cyberattack-happy nation.
If all this gives Americans pause before woofing down a cinnamon bun, purchasing a new flatscreen or dining at any of Subway’s 22,000 U.S. locations — well, good. No company should be doing business in Russia without a damn good reason.
Here, however, many on the far left would start a self-assured “told ya so” rant. “See? Publicly shaming people into aligning with your ideologies works wonderfully!”
To that, I — a lifelong Democrat — reply with this: Your infantile virtue signaling and purity tests give this adult one a bad name.
Yes, purity tests can go good, but only if the goal is sufficiently pure. In the Ukraine crisis, we find a clear example of right versus wrong. Russia is the autocratic aggressor, a nuclear-armed bully invading a sovereign nation under false pretenses espoused on state-controlled media. Ukraine is the democratic defender, a plucky underdog showing us what bravery looks like, and how far a nation’s people will go to preserve their hard-fought freedoms.
This is as simple as Russia bad, Ukraine good. And calling out and boycotting companies placing greed over good is the least we can do to support Ukraine’s valiant existential struggle. What it is not is validation of the extreme Left’s ticky-tacky yet potentially life-ruining tactics.
Hopefully the left will take this as a teaching moment. The lesson: Self-promoting virtue signaling and shame-fueled purity tests are only productive when their righteousness is indisputable. Otherwise, they are varying degrees of petty, divisive and mean-spirited — not to mention indicative of an increasingly oversensitive, feelings-over-facts society.
If liberals and progressives have real capacity for growth, mature reactions to Ukraine’s do-or-die plight will put into proper perspective the histrionic and counterproductive reactions to so many smaller perceived injustices. If it doesn’t, the building backlash may bury the Democratic Party indefinitely.
Dale is a freelance writer.
