The following is from the livid email I just dashed off to Hy-Vee HQ:
I was shocked and outraged to find a piece of blatant political propaganda featured prominently in the checkout aisle, next to the tabloids and cooking magazines. It was called "Take Back America--the Tea Party Leads the Way" and featured on its cover a bunch of well-known conservatives, along with a close-up of an eagle.
(more after the jump)
My email concluded with a boycott threat, and not an idle one I assure you!
I am a Democrat and my family and I have been longtime loyal Hy-Vee shoppers, spending easily tens of thousands of dollars at Hy-Vee over the years. I am active in the Adair County Democrats and I know most Democrats around here tend to shop at Hy-Vee, as they (we) tend to have a bad opinion of Wal-Mart. I went and checked, though, and didn't find any such propaganda in the Wal-Mart checkout aisle. If this is not removed immediately (or a Democratic magazine put next to it as balance), Hy-Vee will have permanently lost my family as customers, and I will actively lobby for other Adair County Democrats to do the same. Whatever profit you are making from sales of this magazine would surely pale next to the prospect of permanently losing who knows how many families as customers.
Now I'm wondering how many other Hy-Vees (or other supermarkets for that matter) are doing this. It's one thing to have a magazine like this sitting on a magazine rack with dozens of others (though even there, I'd love to see more balance); it's quite another to have it staring every single customer in the face as they wait in line to check out. In the latter case, it's more like aiming political propaganda at everyone in line.
And I mean, this is even worse than some "Republicans are great" message. The normative portrayal of the Tea Party as some mainstream, all-American thing, the message that America has somehow been subverted by an insidious enemy and now must be "taken back" is really extreme and despicable and has no place in the checkout aisle of a supermarket.