Reply To: “Cancel culture” as a weapon of war

jackk,

“I never heard of Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and his spreadsheet.”

I imagine a few activists and social media influencers do.

“The size and amount of international companies that are partaking in this boycott and the speed it was done leads me to believe that they had good intentions and were not forced by fear of a backlash.”

The complete reversal of Democratic Party politics from a healthy skepticism and distrust of large corporations prior to the mid 2000s to almost adulation since the 2010s has really taken me by surprise.

“But, I think that this is a clear case of an aggressor doing very bad things and it would be very hard to enact where this isn’t the case.”

That I think is one place where we really disagree.

“So far, it has not stopped Putin.”

It’s a risky gamble, because turning Russian citizens into pariahs could indeed incite anger against Putin and lead to his removal, but it could also backfire and stoke a wave of Russian patriotism and nationalism. Also, Europe continues to buy huge amounts of Russian energy resources, and with prices rocketing through the stratosphere, that may be temporarily offsetting some of the bite of sanctions.