Should You Boycott Your $42 SoulCycle Bike Ride To Stick It to Trump?

The end of political privacy and the politicization of everything

1x 1.1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 3x

:15 :15

Download

Should You Boycott Your $42 SoulCycle Bike Ride To Stick It to Trump?

Is absolutely everything politics now?

Anti-Trumpers are boycotting pricey stationary bike rides at Equinox-owned SoulCycle after major Equinox investor Steven Ross held a fundraiser for Donald Trump. "Steve Ross got into a little bit of trouble this week," Trump joked. "I said, 'Steve welcome to the world of politics!'"

Regular Reason podcasters Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Nick Gillepsie are joined by Elizabeth Nolan Brown to discuss the morality of boycotts and campaign finance disclosure laws, plus conspiracy theories, sex trafficking, political photo ops gone awry, and much more.

The hashtags #ClintonBodyCount and #TrumpBodyCount were both trending after disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in jail on Saturday, and both sides claimed victory in a large immigration raid on a Mississippi meat processing plant that rounded up more than 600 alleged illegal immigrants and left their children weeping in the streets after their first day of school.

As usual, the podcasters make recommendations for stuff to read, watch, and listen to, plus Mangu-Ward asks whether she should take a mysterious red pill with an "X" on it that she found on her desk this morning.

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

'Songe D'Automne' by Latche' Swing is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 FR

What are we consuming this week?

Katherine Mangu-Ward

• "Intelligence Squared" Podcast

Elizabeth Nolan Brown

• Into the Dark

Nick Gillespie

• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Peter Suderman

• The Boys

---

Comments

[Don't look at me!]

What kind of idiot spends $24 to ride a bike?

[John]

Someone with more money than sense.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

So, New Yorkers.

[Eman]

I lived in upstate for several years, and I wasn't the only person who actually rode my bike to get places. There's more New York that isn't the city than is.

[donna426]

Wouldn't be surprised that his profits will double.

[Last of the Shitlords]

The bigger question is why it took four senior Reason staff to write this article. An unpaid intern could have done the same work.

Also, has anyone seen this?

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/08/12/cnns-chris-cuomo-threatens-violence-after-man-calls-him-fredo-ill-fcking-throw-you-down-these-stairs/

Apparently, Chris Cuomo lost his shit when someone called him ‘Fredo’. He even threatened to throw the guy down a nearby flight of stairs. The man told him to go ahead and try. Of course, Fredo backed down at that point just like the Fredo he is.

I am sorely tempted to torture Fredo on Twitter about being Fredo. As I hope many thousands of other people do too.

[tlapp]

Worse to ride it to nowhere.

[JoeJoetheIdiotCircusBoy]

The question KMU is whether you want to wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe or whether you want to stay in wonderland and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

[Dillinger]

+one pill makes you larger.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead.

[Square = Circle]

And the White Knight is talking some nonsense about his privilege.

[Hit and Run]

That pill is blue with a V on it.

[lap83]

"Anti-Trumpers are boycotting pricey stationary bike rides at Equinox-owned SoulCycle"

Did they use to ride the bikes with their wife, Morgan Fairchild?

[Hit and Run]

Suzanne Sommers senses market opportunity

[Uncle Jay]

"Should You Boycott Your $24 SoulCycle Bike Ride To Stick It to Trump?"

That's up to you.
No, that's not right.
You need a nanny from the local Thought Police station to tell you what to do.
My bad.
I thought I was living in a free country.

[NashTiger]

Trump body count? That is really some Both Sidesism

[Dillinger]

if anyone think *anything* they do sticks it to Trump they're delusional

[Chipper Morning Wood]

You are right, the orange foundation cream makes that impossible.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Should You Boycott Your $24 SoulCycle Bike Ride To Stick It to Trump?

Yes. Show everyone once and for all that you're there for social signaling, and not for the fitness aspect.

[Hit and Run]

Also, send that $24 to the corner detention centers to buy those kids some bigger cages

[Moderation4ever]

Should your boycott "The Dixie Chicks" because Natalie Maines criticized President Bush. Well the DC play country music and the followers were partial to President Bush. So the DC took a hit. I suspect that users of SoulCycle are younger and affluent and would skew away from President Trump. So a boycott seems logical. We are in an age where you may have a problem if your politics don't align with your customers.

[Square = Circle]

Do you expect every person to agree with you on every issue whatsoever, or are you willing to do the research you need to do in order to discover that there is a vanishingly small number of people your ideological rigidity will allow you to purchase things from?

[Hit and Run]

Depends what you're purchasing... It does turn into a game of "who passed me off most this week". Doing just fine not buying Gillette/P&G products due to virtue signaling. Odds are some of the off label products I buy are made by then, but I feel better not giving them my dollars

[North49]

I feel like Nick's been sitting back in the mix a bit since that time he went all 'I'm gonna let you finish but...' for a whole episode about Facebook censorship, but today he's come back out of his shell a bit more, and was really insightful and contributed a lot to this epp. Thanks Nick! Thanks crew, you make Mondays great again.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

It's time for savy business investors to always start two companies at once, one for each group of tribal idiots.

[EscherEnigma]

Option C) I'm not going out of my way to do opposition research on every company I buy from, but if someone else drops it on my plate, it's not unfair to behave accordingly.

[CE]

If I boycotted every movie starring an actor I disagree with politically, there wouldn't be anything left to watch.

[BearOdinson]

Why is there a "morality" question about boycotts? People should be free to choose with whom they do business. In addition, they also should be free to try and persuade others to their point of view. That is all a boycott is. A group of like-minded people publicly deciding not to patronize a business and trying to persuade others to also not use that business.
The only morality issues come up with either government forcing (like cities banning Chik fil A) or using force or fraud for your boycott.

[Hit and Run]

Until you wind up with groups pressuring other groups or governments orgs not to use a product/service.

[Troglodyte Rex]

You're using the word persuade wrongly.

An argument meant to persuade utilizes logic and facts. An argument meant to manipulate utilizes emotion.

Their basis for boycott is based in emotion.

[Ken Shultz]

"Should You Boycott Your $42 SoulCycle Bike Ride To Stick It to Trump?"

The correct answer is "yes".

In a related story, last week, the Chairman of the Board for Cathay Pacific, an airline based in Hong Kong, stated that it's employees Chairman John Slosar said Cathay Pacific would respect the right of its employees to take part in the protests. “We certainly wouldn’t dream of telling them what they have to think about something".

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kongs-cathay-pacific-warns-airline-staff-they-could-be-fired-for-supporting-protests-11565609566?

That didn't sit well with the Chinese Government, and they made a rule that any Cathay Pacific employee who joined the protests in Hong Kong wouldn't be allowed to fly to mainland China or pass through China's airspace. The Chinese government, you see, is perfectly happy to tell people what to think about all sorts of things.

With the serious threat to the airline, Cathay Pacific's CEO clarified today that any Cathay Pacific employees who join the protests will be fired.

We've long noticed, around here, that the social justice warriors and the progressives on college campuses act like Chinese student leaders during the Cultural Revolution, with struggle sessions, demands for public apologies, ruining people's careers,. etc. It's also interesting to note that progressives act like the Chinese government. It's not enough to let people believe what they want. They must be living symbols of progressive ideals.

Yeah, there's a big difference between the Chinese government trying to control what people who work at a company say and think and progressives taking our their wrath on a company, but there's also a difference between going after a company for what the investors say and going after a company because of the company's practices in its core business.

I wouldn't really care if executives at Facebook and Google said or supported things that I disagree with. It's the fact that their core business involves treating me, my friends, and my family like shit that really bothers me. It's the difference between an executive at an auto maker advocating for gun control and an auto makers using slave labor to build cars. It seems like that's where the line is to me, but disassociate from anyone you want for your own reasons.

[Ken Shultz]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/12/business/cathay-pacific-hong-kong-protest/index.html

[Fats of Fury]

A few clues regarding what happened to Jeffrey Epstein.

[Earth Skeptic]

More evidence that life has gotten much, much too easy for some people.

1. They focus their entire existence on signaling.
2. They pay money to ride a bike that does not go anywhere.

[CE]

News flash: many wealthy investors are Republicans. This used to not be such a big deal, and people tried to coexist.

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

Sure, throw some people out of a job, people who probably voted for Hillary. That'll show Trump!

[Jerry B.]

If everyone boycotts SoulCycle, Steven Ross might have to keep his current private jet another month before trading it in on a new one. The trainers, receptionists, and other SoulCycle employees will be looking for other work. That'll show Ross.

[Jerry B.]

BTW, should we even use the term "boycott"? Couldn't that trigger some young man who was abused on his bed at summer camp?

[Heraclitus]

Yes. As long as wealthy people have money to influence elections we, as consumers, must use our cvonsumer-power to weigh in on all this. If a business owner has enough leftover profit to be able to spend it so that they can influence politicians (and hence, create distortions in the market) then it's fair game.

Let's face it. People have very little power. We are outspent at election time and our votes are gerry-mandered away. So we need to use our consumer power if we want to make a difference.

[JDS1]

Didn't mean to flag for review sorry

[JDS1]

The attractive people formerly at Equinox and SoulCycle are now quitting. They do not care one bit what the fat alt-white troll losers commenting at Reason think. They would avoid looking at you on the subway out of embarrassment. Fuck your feelings!

[JDS1]

On a company conference call Equinox admitted it's losing $250K per month because of these boycotts. We have a fascist in the white house who openly espouses political violence by Americans against Americans ("Second Amendment solution!" "I'll pay your legal bills!" "Just shoot them")

The people with money, education, and looks are coming for you fatass Wal-Mart scooter losers. We are going to ruin everyone associated with Trump because you initiated a politics of violence, cruelty and division. Fuck you.

[İzmir Beyaz Eşya Servisi]

interesting

[TangoDelta]

The reason immigrants and convicts work in the food factories is because they'll work for less than minimum wage. It isn't that people don't want those jobs, they don't want those jobs for the going wage which is suppressed by having illegal immigrants and prisoners suppressing the wage.

$15 livable wage! Or not. Drink!