Will hardcore Trump supporters – like this sweet, all-American Arizona voter – stop buying iPhones? Will iPhone fans who also love Trump now hurl their devices into the sewer and switch to Samsung, a vaguely creepy foreign company that doesn’t give a damn about US politics, and will therefore happily support a hunk of rotting asparagus if it will sell them more Galaxy S’?
In short, will Apple’s rather unprecedented decision to not supply the GOP with any financial or product support for this year’s convention, which it has done for both parties for many years, all because of Trump’s poisonous stances, spur a new outbreak of the Mac/PC wars that no one really cared about in the first place? Will Apple’s stock tumble? Will Trump supporters revolt? Do they even read? You already know the answer.
Did you miss this thoroughly boring news item? It’s OK; Apple’s surprise move might be the least newsworthy hunk of Trump-molested news the week, amidst a slew of stories about the Donald’s flailing, broke, understaffed, grossly mismanaged non-campaign that’s getting more absurd by the day.
But Apple’s decision to avoid the GOP convention does bespeak one newsworthy aspect: Just how remarkable it is that a company the gargantuan scale and massive global reach of Apple is actually willing to take a (modest, not at all damaging) stance against… well, whatever the hell noxious stew of racist sexist bigoted hategurgle Trump embodies. Google didn’t have the nerve. No one cares about Microsoft to notice either way. Facebook wimped out, as expected.
It just doesn’t happen, much, particularly with companies of Apple’s stature. They mostly tend to avoid any political stance or endorsement, at least publicly, to avoid insulting any potential customers. Sure, they sometimes band together, like Apple did with a wide range of companies against North Carolina’s viciously homophobic “bathroom use” legislation. Sure, Walmart and Target, et al, eventually had to put a stop to Open Carry morons marching through their stores with rifles strapped to their bloated, paranoid white beer-bellies. But that’s less of a stance than a function of running a fair-minded business.
But let’s be honest: Apple’s move is hardly radical – and they know it (Tim Cook is even hosting a breakfast for Paul Ryan, to indicate the company’s general bipartisanship). Banning Trump, blocking Trump, lamenting being anywhere near Trump, feeling your soul ripped to bloody shreds because you associate with Trump is quickly becoming a new American pastime. Dude is radioactive. So much so that it probably would have done more harm to Apple to have its brand even tacitly associated with the GOP convention, while Trump is its carcinogenic king.
So no, silly PC writer dudes and bored pundits, Apple is not now the “anti-Trump platform” – if anything, they’re actually the “pro human-decency” platform. This isn’t going to cause the slightest blip in the eternally insipid “Mac/PC wars” that no one really cared about in the first place. There will be no violent anti-Apple rally. Apple will feel zero sales slump; if anything, more Americans will admire Apple for setting a clear boundary against the Rabid Orange Monster.
After all, Trump hates Apple already, and Apple… clearly could not care less. Tim Cook & Co. know there isn’t a single American company of note that would willingly link itself to the Trump “brand” at this point. He’s an abysmal businessman, a laughable thinker, a disastrous politician and has proven himself even dumber than Bush when it comes to inane conspiracy theories, bashing immigrants, understanding the rudimentary fundamentals of American policy.
Which is to say, Apple is merely doing what everyone with a functioning heart is doing right now: getting as far from the ticking warhead of slavering disaster that is the Trump campaign as possible, before it poisons everyone’s drink. Just good business smarts, really.
Read more here:: Apple disses Trump, because of course they should
