I mean, it’s happened before — as recently as seven years ago, when IHOP (the International House of Pancakes) changed its name to IHOB (the International House of Burgers). At least for a few weeks.
It was a head-fake, of course — a publicity stunt — that successfully juiced sales and boosted attention:
"Literally everybody in the world now knows that IHOP is now selling burgers," [IHOP president Darren] Rebelez said. "That was goal No. 1. Goal No. 2 was to actually sell them."
So when Cracker Barrel unveiled a “rebranding campaign” that was as dry and unimaginative as its cornbread, some in the business world wondered: “Maybe they’re playing 4D chess? ‘Cuz they couldn’t be THIS stupid… could they?”
(Conspiracy theorists ain’t just in politics, kids. Every industry has 'em.)
And then, when Cracker Barrel quickly reversed its decision (credit to PJ Media’s intrepid reporter/rebel Sarah Anderson for breaking the story), it almost seemed like the conspiracy theorists were right: Maybe it really was a scheme to get everyone talking about Cracker Barrel again!
After all, that’s exactly what happened.
But this time, the conspiracy theorists are wrong: Cracker Barrel simply screwed up. When its market value plunged by $100 million and the backlash was so intense, it actually brought Republicans and Democrats together, Cracker Barrel did the one logical thing: It yanked its hand off the blazing-hot stove.
And not a moment too soon!
The IHOP/IHOB PR stunt was the exception to the rule, not a pattern you should actively seek. The overwhelming majority of the time, a boneheaded business decision isn’t 4D chess, a conspiracy theory, or an elaborate ruse.
Instead, it’s usually just a boneheaded decision.
The same thing happened during Coca-Cola’s disastrous rebranding to New Coke in 1985: Conspiracy theorists wondered if it was all a scheme to remind consumers how much they loved the flavor of original Coke. Donald Keough, Coke’s ex-CEO, acknowledged the controversy but admitted the obvious: “Some critics will say Coca-Cola made a marketing mistake. Some cynics will say we planned the whole thing. The truth is, we are not that dumb, and we are not that smart.” [emphasis added]
If Coke is the “real thing,” what Keough said was the real truth: 4D chess is a unicorn; boneheaded decisions are everywhere.
But once you realize you’re making a boneheaded decision, for the love of God, stop digging your hole deeper! (Pinsker’s Law of PR #5: Doubling down on a bad idea doesn’t make it better; it makes you go broke twice as fast.)
In fact, the telltale sign of a wise leader is when someone is smart enough to abandon a bad idea.
About 15 years ago, Apple’s flagship product, the iPhone, was mired in a scandal dubbed “Antennagate”: Via a design flaw, the iPhone 4 was dropping calls. Consumer Reports refused to recommend it. Apple’s core financial model was threatened.
At first, Apple CEO Steve Jobs pooh-poohed the controversy, but when he realized the scandal wasn’t going away, he changed course.
“We’re not perfect. We know that. You know that,” Jobs announced at a press conference. “And [our] phones aren’t perfect either.”
He acknowledged the mistake, pledged to fix it, offered free iPhone 4 cases (which improved reception), and allowed all dissatisfied consumers to return their phones and get their money back. (Less than 2% actually did — a lower return rate than previous models.)
And now, today, “Antennagate” is all but forgotten, and just eight years later, Apple made history as the first $1 trillion company in history.
This brings us to President Donald Trump and his head-scratching decision to allow 600,000 Chinese students to enroll in U.S. colleges.
Which, of course, is an academic courtesy that China refuses to extend to U.S. students. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted:
In the academic year 2024, there were 277,000 Chinese nationals who were studying here at academic institutions here in the United States. On the other hand, there were only 800 Americans who were studying at universities over in China.
Meanwhile, Harvard has trained so many Chinese communist officials that they call it their “party school”:
For decades, the [Chinese Communist] party has sent thousands of mid-career and senior bureaucrats to pursue executive training and postgraduate studies on U.S. campuses, with Harvard University a coveted destination described by some in China as the top “party school” outside the country.
Alumni of such programs include a former vice president and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s top negotiator in trade talks with the first Trump administration.
Quite naturally, those 600,000 admissions for Chinese students will mean 600,000 fewer admissions for American students. The internationalization of U.S. colleges is a phenomenon that’s grown exponentially since the start of the 1980s:
In the 2023-24 school year, no fewer than 1.1 million international students were enrolled in colleges and universities in the United States, or almost four times the number in the 1979-80 school year. (Total enrollments at universities rose by a little more than 50 percent over the same period.)
Like many large social changes, this one happened without much conscious planning or debate. Foreign students kept applying in ever greater numbers, and universities happily admitted them, since non-Americans receive merit- and need-based financial assistance at much lower rates than Americans do. [emphasis added]
A few months ago, I wrote this:
My oldest son graduated from high school over the weekend. The valedictorian (er, not my kid) announced that he would be going to Carnegie Mellon, which is certainly an excellent school. Kudos to him.
I’m sure he worked super-hard.
But when he’s there, about half his classmates will be non-Americans. That’s because 44% of Carnegie Mellon’s student body is comprised of foreign students.
The same is true for many of America’s most admired colleges and universities. Among the top 15 U.S. colleges with the highest percentage of international students are such heavy-hitters as Columbia, Johns Hopkins (which receives more NIH grant money than any other college), New York University, Caltech, University of Chicago, M.I.T, and yes, Harvard.
Perhaps it’s time for the MAGA movement to go MEGA: Make Education Great Again.
Why the heck is President Trump so keen on importing 600,000 Chinese college students, training them in America, and then sending them back to China?
My best guess is that Trump is using higher education as a bargaining chip. And since he considers U.S. colleges to be overhyped, overpriced, and overvalued, he’s more than happy to sacrifice them at the altar of a greater Chinese-U.S. trade deal.
That’s Negotiating 101: Offer something that the other guy values a whole lot more than you do. And of all the things we could “sacrifice,” in the eyes of Trump, this is low-hanging fruit.
And besides, this is what the colleges want, too. They’re desperate for foreign students — and all the delicious money they bring. So, from Trump’s point of view, why not throw ‘em a bone? That’s the function of carrots and sticks!
It might be smart negotiating, but it’s not America First.
State and local governments spend 8.5% of their entire budget on higher education, more than what’s spent on highways, roads, police, courts, jails, or housing. It’s a huge burden on taxpayers — but we do it to invest in the next generation of Americans.
We sure as hell don’t do it to invest in Communist China.
The internationalization of U.S. colleges should be reduced, not increased. It was a bad idea; it is a bad idea — and it’s an even worse idea to double down on a bad idea!
Let’s pull a Cracker Barrel and call the whole thing off.
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