Once the news broke that Goodyear had a policy in place forbidding MAGA hats and Blue Lives Matter apparel in the workplace but allowed Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ pride gear, you knew things were going to become awkward quickly. And they did. It didn’t take very long on Wednesday before someone alerted President Trump to the news and his response was as rapid as it was predictable. I decided to have a little fun with his declaration within moments of it happening.

Who had 10:34am in the pool? 😎 https://t.co/JvSYXeFOU4

— Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) August 19, 2020

It was literally a matter of minutes before somebody reported that Goodyear’s stock value was beginning to slump. By the middle of the afternoon, it had dropped by six percent, though it rebounded a few percent by the close of trading. By the next morning, the equally predictable response came from Goodyear’s CEO. Why, of course we didn’t mean to say that people couldn’t express support for law enforcement. We love law enforcement. Of course, we still love calls for racial justice too. (NY Post)

Goodyear Tire Chief Executive Rich Kramer said Thursday the company had clarified its policy to make clear employees can wear apparel expressing support for law enforcement after it faced a boycott call from President Trump…

Kramer said Goodyear “strongly supports” law enforcement noting it has supplied tires to police and fire vehicles for more than 100 years. “That relationship is foundational to our company,” Kramer wrote employees Thursday. “Goodyear has always supported both law enforcement and equal justice.”

Shares in Goodyear fell as much as 6 percent on Wednesday after Trump’s tweet, but pared some losses to close down 2.4 percent. Goodyear shares fell 0.4 percent Thursday to $9.46.

It’s been a couple of days now and much of the outrage has died down for the moment (as usually happens in such flaps), but I’m not sure what Kramer thought he was fixing with his announcement. You’ll note that in the original presentation slide there were four things that were supposedly not allowed as appropriate office apparel. Here’s a refresher on that slide.

According to @goodyear tires, a MAGA shirt is a zero tolerance hate symbol. But Black Lives Matter is allowed. pic.twitter.com/1kWRqSDFQa

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) August 18, 2020

– Blue Lives Matter
– All lives matter
– MAGA attire
– Political Affiliated Slogans or Attire

But in his retraction, Kramer really only addressed the first one. That means that All Lives Matter, MAGA and “politically affiliated” propaganda would still be off-limits. What was the first thing President Trump complained about? The MAGA hats. Yes, he chastised them for not supporting law enforcement also, but it was the MAGA callout that drew his ire first. Do we really think that Trump’s anger will be diminished by Goodyear just allowing Blue Lives Matter material? Doubtful to say the least.

Beyond that, how is “All Lives Matter” deemed to be “political” any more so than Blue Lives? Is this some tacit acknowledgment that all lives matter to one party but the other party only wants to talk about Black lives? Nevermind what we already know is the reality here… it’s just not something that liberals are supposed to admit to. The same thing goes for MAGA. Sure, we all know that Trump gave birth to that slogan as part of his campaign, but it doesn’t have his name in it nor does it reference a specific party. Does one party not want America to be great?

As Allahpundit pointed out in our previous article linked above, Goodyear is in choppy waters all the way across the board by saying that “politically affiliated slogans or attire” are banned because then somebody at HR has to determine what words, acronyms and phrases qualify as being politically affiliated. There’s a registered Black Lives Matter Party in multiple locations. And that’s a flag that’s flying at political rallies around the country. And while we all know that LGBTQ pride is a cause championed far louder among liberals and Democrats, we have plenty of LGBTQ Republicans out there. Still, it’s hard to remove the politics from that slogan as well, no matter which side of the coin you fall on.

It seems to me that Kramer needs to simply allow people to wear what they want and openly support whatever causes they favor or he should just ban all logos, slogans and other symbology aside from Goodyear logos. Trying to split the baby in this fashion is only going to continue to get him in trouble.