Costco Sues Trump, MAGA Chuds Cancel Memberships They Forgot To Cancel Over DEI
Well ... Bye.
Costco is now the biggest of many retailers that have had it with Donald Trump’s stupid capricious tariff policies, and on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit demanding a refund of the tariffs the company has already had to pay on imported goods. The Supreme Court heard arguments last month in a challenge to Trump’s authority to impose the tariffs, but Costco isn’t waiting for the Supremes to rule in that case, as the Associated Press lawsplains.
If the court strikes down the tariffs, importers may be entitled to refunds on the levies they’ve paid. “It’s uncertain whether refunds will be granted and, if so, how much,’' said Brent Skorup, a legal fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. ”But the possibility has prompted many companies — including Costco — to file actions in the U.S. Court of International Trade to get in line, so to speak, for potential refunds.’'
Costco simply wants that most American of Christmas wishes, as Sally Brown explained to her older brother in the classic holiday special: “All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share.”
Costco is a great big profitable company that makes a fuckton of money while paying its employees fairly — around 40 percent more than your usual big-box retailers, with good benefits and insurance, too, and real opportunities for advancement. It’s often called a model of “responsible capitalism” because it’s so fucking ethical.
Of course, part of the reason Costco can do that is hardwired into the business model: instead of trying to expand into every possible retail market, Costco sells a whole lot of stock, with good but fairly limited product lines, to generally affluent customers. At the Boise store, I’ve noticed, you can get a month’s worth of organic peanut butter, or of Skippy smooth peanut butter, or of Jif crunchy peanut butter, but you aren’t gonna get the Skippy crunchy or Jif smooth, just deal with it, Boomer yuppie. (Because Kid Zoom is a choosy mother, our peanut butter comes in big containers from Winco, a regional employee-owned supermarket chain.)
Thing is, that business model is just fine with most of Costco’s target customers, many of whom stopped being Target customers when that chain caved to the anti-DEI panic last year — and Costco very famously said fuck y’all, diversity is good business. Costco wasn’t simply being nice or progressive or anything, either. It simply considers DEI efforts — along with its high employee loyalty — part of why it’s successful, not a frill that can be dispensed with. High employee satisfaction and diversity in the workforce means less turnover, less need to pay for constantly training new staff, better profits, and a workforce that, not incidentally, reflects Costco’s diverse customer base.
Funny how brilliant business guys like Republicans can’t figure that out, huh?
Anyway, because MAGA would be nothing without pointless anger, a bunch of rightwing online influencers have been bitching about how opposing Trump’s tariffs is an act of treason, and they’re proclaiming that they’re done with Costco forever, just like they earlier insisted they’d boycott Costco over the DEI policies.
“BYE BYE COSTCO,” posted Jondavid “JD” Longo, the GOP mayor of Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. “After doubling down on nonsensical DEI and social justice practices, Costco is suing Trump Administration for full refunds of President Trump’s tariffs.”
He continued, “If you didn’t have a reason to sell your Costco stock and cancel your memberships before… You do now. Refuse to fund their attack on what The People voted for!”
The Daily Beast has a nice collection of online posts, or poses, from MAGA folks who said they were canceling their Costco memberships back in January in response to the DEI thing, and now say they are FOR SURE canceling their memberships now over the tariff defiance.
Costco just yesterday reported 8.1 percent sales growth for November, with a total of $23.64 billion in sales for the month. But by golly, those MAGA boycott threats are for sure going to make it think twice about opposing Great Leader over tariffs, which remain hugely unpopular even among Republican voters.
[CNN / Ethics Unwrapped / AP / Daily Beast (via Yahoo)]
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" . . .MAGA would be nothing without pointless anger . . ."
On a personal note:
I opened in a club in upstate NY earlier this year and told a joke about MAGA.
Heckler: “Hey, Lib, half the people in here are MAGA. Do you really want to tell a joke about them?”
Me: “Hell no! I’d have to explain it five times.”
Costco suing Trump is the most “American Christmas special” plot twist imaginable. Big-box Santa looks at the tariffs, looks at Trump, and basically says, “Hey buddy, I’d like my money back and my dignity too.”
And now the MAGA influencers are out here declaring, for the second time this year, that they’re canceling memberships they never actually canceled. It’s like watching a dude storm out of a party he wasn’t invited to, shouting “You’ll miss me when I’m gone,” while everyone else is loading their carts with 40-pound peanut butter tubs and moving on with their lives.
Costco will be fine. Their sales jump every time MAGA threatens a boycott. It's almost renewable energy at this point.
Meanwhile, Trump’s legal and economic strategy is the same as ever: break something, pretend it’s fine, then fall asleep during the press conference explaining the broken thing.
In another timeline, this would be satire. In ours, it’s Thursday.