No one likes the idea of General Motors' collapse. GM executives don't like it. Workers don't like it. Dealers don't like it. Stockholders don't like it. Bondholders don't like it. Taxpayers don't like it. No one likes seeing so many who have worked for decades lose so much of their pensions and health care. No one wants to see a century old mainstay of the economy tottering on the brink.
But for the far right, there's a far bigger principle at work: government intervention is stinky. Once the government has invested in something, it's tainted by the unholy whiff of impure capitalism -- a smell that the farthest of the far right place just below catfish cheese bait. Worse, the government's largest partner in ownership of the new GM will be the United Autoworkers Union. In Wingnutia, that's like pairing cheese bait with roadkill possum (which every conservative knows is only proper in months containing the letter 'R').
So now that we are all investors in the comeback of GM, with billions riding on the company's resurrection, conservatives have developed a brilliant plan: We will boycott ourselves!
Nonetheless, the bailout is triggering a backlash that has some arch-conservatives calling for an all-out boycott of the makers, and especially of "Government Motors," as critics call it, which will emerge from bankruptcy with the Treasury Department holding more than 60% of the "new" GM’s stock.
Among those who have given voice to the idea of a boycott is the conservative host Hugh Hewitt, who made the bailout a pet peeve on his nationally-syndicated talk radio show, as well as in the blog he posts on the website, Townhall.com. ... Hewitt is by no means alone. The boycott theme is quickly spreading across the conservative talk radio world, as well as on websites like the one operated by the rightist Washington Times ... "Once the UAW becomes part of the ownership group, I will never buy another GM again - ever."
Yes, there's no better way to show your hatred of workers united in collective action than by uniting in collective action against workers.
Hewitt says the calls pouring into his show are running ten to one in the favor of boycott (so the total advocates of boycott likely now stands at about... ten). As with all really idiotic ideas, the notion of boycotting GM for it's affiliation with the United States government is spreading quickly through the right wing-o-sphere. So should we worry about the impact on the new GM?
Eh... not so much.
When asked if he fears the call for a boycott will cut into sales, GM’S CFO Young said, "I don’t think so," adding that, "I believe the vast majority of Americans want us to succeed. They want the hometown team to succeed."
For his part, analyst Jim Hall, of 2953 Analytics, cautioned that, "You always worry when people are organized against you, but," Hall stressed, "you’re talking about a small wing of a party that’s imploding."