This is just insane.

A British home improvement store has declared that customers who don’t embrace alphabet ideology are not welcome in their stores.

Apparently, there is an ideological test for buying paint.

Wickes boss sparks fury as he says 'bigoted' shoppers concerned about trans rights 'not welcome in stores' https://t.co/Ec3evLOtpY

— GB News (@GBNEWS) June 16, 2023

Now I can understand a company asking customers to not engage in harassing others who just are going about their business in their stores. This is called being civilized living in a diverse society and not unnecessarily stirring up trouble in places where we all necessarily must coexist, no matter our differences. Wearing T-shirts with political slogans shouldn’t be out of bounds, since this is a common if annoying practice that people of all different ideological stripes, but stirring up trouble unnecessarily should of course be discouraged.

But nobody is accused of doing that. People are simply expressing their displeasure at Wickes’ entry into politics, and the company invited that criticism by…entering into politics. When you wade into a swamp, don’t complain about the mud.

Wickes’ chief operating officer has sparked a furious social media debate after branding gender-critical shoppers “bigots” who are “not welcome in our stores”.

Fraser Longden, the firm’s chief operating officer, attended an online event hosted by Pink News on trans rights yesterday.

Longden said: “I don’t think I’m ever going to change some of the bigots out there’s minds, I’m never going to win that argument with them, so we were doing it to show support to the community.”

When asked about a potential boycott, he added: “The other ten per cent you know, they’re just hot air and they will go and buy a tin of paint in the nearest place to them.

“That might have been us before, it might not be us afterwards – and equally, if they do come in and buy a tin of paint and behave that way, they’re not welcome in our stores anyway.”

Why why why would anybody who is responsible for the economic health of their company expend considerable effort to insult his customers? This is about as stupid as stupid gets. Just as trans people going to Wickes are just looking for paint, so are the people who think that female-identifying men should stay out of girls’ locker rooms.

It’s not like they are sporting the Nazi flag; they are trying to protect women’s spaces, which last I checked was an uncontroversial position until about 30 seconds ago.

What is striking about this controversy is how sincere the COO of Wickes is, and how willing he is to harm his employees despite the fact that the company will do nothing to change the debate except perhaps amp up the discord just a bit more.

People don’t respond well to being insulted.

I know. I tried to make friends with somebody by calling them a bigot and a Nazi and they decided I wasn’t somebody they wanted to be around. You should try it too, should you be in any doubt. It rarely ends well.

Does he have a "trans" child or grand child?
Why is he so invested in this?

Outrage as Wickes boss says trans-critical shoppers 'not welcome' https://t.co/5xskNdKh3n via https://t.co/YNYGms3EWq

— ''Femalism''🟥 🟪⬜🟩 (@ilovepreserves) June 16, 2023

Unsurprisingly a lot of people are canceling orders for products from the company, and just as unsurprisingly the company is scrambling to contain the damage done by one of their officers insulting a huge percentage of their customers.

Is this what they teach in B-schools now: if you want to improve your standing in the community then tell customers you hate them?

Longdon didn’t just take aim at activists; he claimed that 90% of Britons are “a bit thick” and need reeducation. It’s good to know that he thinks that only 10% of his customers deserve access to home improvement products.

This is stage 1 of “damage limitation” based on around 90% of us being a bit thick. It won’t work @Wickes because you misjudged the public. #BoycottWickes

— Tori Sophie (@ToriSIles) June 16, 2023

Several things pop to mind regarding this apparent trend in major corporations.

First, obviously, is the clear fact that people at the elite levels of our society genuinely dislike most people, thinking they are dunces who should sit down and shut up.

This in itself is nothing new; all elites think this, actually, and is not unique to Leftists. It is a key benefit of being a member of the elite. Looking down on people is satisfying.

This brings us to the second point: it is socially acceptable and even encouraged these days to express this once-secret belief, which is an indication that the elite has divorced itself completely from their society. They solely identify with each other, rather than having a critical mass who understand that their standing in society is still dependent upon the tolerance of the proles.

And third, this shows the growing narcissism of the elite class, who now willingly sacrifice the well-being of even their own companies and employees simply for the pleasure of publicly hating on everybody else. This is likely an indication of imminent or ongoing decline.

For all their annoyances, in a functioning society, the elite actually performs a useful social function. While most of us go about our lives building lives and families, we outsource to elites the running of what should be a relatively limited set of institutions that are complicated, tedious to run, and ensure the well-being of society as a whole. This is especially true in business and government.

We know they skim a lot of cream off the top in terms of money and prestige, but we can’t devote our own lives to the minutia of foreign policy, road planning, and collecting data. It is a trade-off we make, and are constantly annoyed by given how arrogant that elite tends to be.

But pure democracy has its downsides too, which is why well-functioning societies tend to be Republics. The founders understood this and designed a system where elites compete against each other for a share of power, and that competition is supposed to limit the abuses of the elite. Madison explains this well in the Federalist Papers.

Unfortunately, the elite, or what many call the Uniparty or the Deep State have largely merged into a single group who openly despise us.

We can no longer outsource what to most of us is the drudgery of keeping society running to people who hate us. They simply have to be replaced by taking away their money and power. We do have the power to punish them for their outrageous behavior–ask Bud Light how their activism has been going–and have to be aroused to use it.

I for one don’t think the solution is direct Democracy–its flaws are manifest too–but Republics only work when we hold people accountable, and we frankly have fallen down on the job. The Elite gets their money and power and in return, they piss on the rest of us.

It’s time to make our wrath clear.