Target went anti-‘woke’: Is the once-mighty retailer about to go broke?

Target CEO Brian Cornell just found out the hard way that when you go anti-‘woke,’ you go broke.

Cornell has been forced out – technically, he’s “stepping down” early next year, in favor of his second-in-command – after his move to scrap the retailer’s DEI initiatives in a cave to the Trump/Project 2025 movement earlier this year.

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Not the brightest move there, considering the company’s base of customers skews left-of-center.

Predictably, foot traffic at Target store locations nationwide cratered in the wake of the move on DEI, and the company reported a 21 percent drop (!) in net income for the economic quarter that ended on Aug. 2.

Target is six months and counting into its post-DEI era, and it’s not likely to reverse the trend with a bean counter, Chief Operating Officer Michael Fiddelke, set to take the reins from Cornell on Feb. 1.

Fiddelke’s comments on his pending ascension signal that he and Target’s board of directors don’t get it. They think the issue is that Target has, in Fiddelke’s words, lost its “swagger in our merchandising authority,” that it’s no longer “setting the trend for retail,” when the real problem is, it’s not that they’ve gone overboard trying to out-Walmart Walmart in its product offerings, but in their fealty to Trump and the MAGAs.

The decision to jettison DEI in January came on the heels of Cornell caving to pressure from MAGA activists in 2023 in removing Pride merchandise from Target stores.

Kowtowing to people who don’t do business with you is not a good business strategy, which I point out because Target’s latest sluggish quarter is its 11th straight with declining sales, so, dating back to the reversal on the in-store Pride displays.

“Sales have not gone down for Costco. They have not gone down for Walmart,” said Atlanta pastor Jamal Bryant, who led a 40-day “Target fast” that helped precipitate the sharp drop in foot traffic at Target stores across the country.