Congratulations to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who was recently named “employee of the month” at Goya Foods for her outstanding contributions to the company’s bottom line.
Goya Foods CEO Bob Unanue innocently praised Donald Trump in July after a roundtable at the White House with Hispanic business leaders. He politely pointed out, “We’re all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump, who is a builder.”
In the Cloud Cuckoo Land of left-wing hysteria, Twitter exploded, while Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for a boycott of Goya Foods.
Oh look, it’s the sound of me Googling “how to make your own Adobo” https://t.co/YOScAcyAnC
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 10, 2020
Pathetically, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other major media outlets enthusiastically embraced the idea. “Goya Foods Boycott Takes Off…” was the Times headline.
Except, it didn’t “take off.” The “boycott” became a “buycott” as Goya sales spiked 1,000 percent, according to Unanue, who appeared on the Michael Berry Show.
“When she boycotted us, our sales actually increased 1,000%,” Unanue said on the show which is syndicated on some 20 stations across the country, “So we gave her an honorary, we never were able to hand it to her, but she got employee of the month for bringing attention to Goya and our adobo.”
He noted that the boycott allowed Goya to reach “so many new people” while maintaining its base.
It was an idiotic, naive ploy to actually think people would give up favored ingredients for traditional dishes because of politics. The world doesn’t work that way, people don’t think that way — except in the fevered imaginations of left-wing zealots who think that everyone shares a pathological hatred of Donald Trump, where even the mere mention of his name in a positive light can get one canceled.
The inexplicable belief that a boycott would actually work was shared by many on the left who should have known better. Paul Reyes wrote at CNN that Latinos would bring Goya Foods down.
There is an element of pathos here, too. Latinos have a unique relationship with Goya Foods because Latinos love Goya products. They remind people of their grandmother’s favorite recipe or delicious holiday meals. For some immigrants, Goya’s products are literally a taste of home. They can be found in virtually every Latino household across the country. So as word has spread about Unanue’s remarks, many Latinos have felt a mixture of betrayal and sadness that a beloved brand is now tarnished by an association with Trump. This is a boycott that is rooted in sadness as much as it is rooted in anger and outrage.
The boycott was “rooted” in nothing but delusional thinking. That’s a lot sadder than “tarnishing” Goya’s image by its CEO saying nice things about the president.
Unanue may have been gently tweaking AOC for her misguided boycott but he actually genuinely likes her and wishes she would change her radical beliefs.
“It’s interesting that AOC was one of the first people to step in line to boycott Goya. To go against her own people, as supposedly a Puerto Rican woman, to go against people of her own Latin culture,” Unanue said. “To some extent I can understand AOC. She’s young, she’s naïve, she doesn’t get it. But you’ve got someone like [Senator Bernie] Sanders, who’s older than us … other than me, who still doesn’t get it.”
Unanue has been a strong voice for economic and personal freedom and has been unafraid to take on the radical bullies. The irony of AOC’s actions leading to exactly the opposite reaction by consumers is more delicious than a black bean soup made with Goya products.
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