People have been up in arms all week after it was reported that Stephen Ross, the billionaire real estate developer who holds the majority stake in Equinox Fitness Clubs, will host a $250,000 per person fundraiser for Trump’s reelection campaign this weekend.
Gay Twitter lit up with tweets of outrage. Equinox members, and those of its subsidiaries like PURE Yoga, Blink Fitness and SoulCycle, began canceling their memberships in droves. Political pundits began offering their opinions on the controversy.
And then came the memes…
Related: Gay Twitter responds to the Equinox Fitness/Trump fundraiser debacle
Paul Nadolski
There isn’t an Equinox within 400 miles of where I live, and with my income, I couldn’t afford it anyway. Honestly, I’m really starting to get tired of this. If you don’t like what this guy did, then don’t patronize his business! Problem solved!
Cam
That’s literally what’s going on. So what’s the problem?
Diplomat-G
Thrilled to have canceled that membership years ago.
Cam
Hey, supporting a racist bigot SHOULD be expensive and harm your business.
Brian
I wonder which side of the political spectrum most of the businesses we patronize are on? Trump’s pro business side or Bernie and CO’s tax the sh!t out of the rich and business to pay for all the free stuff they want to give to everybody?
Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re not supporting guys exactly like this one every time you take out your wallet. But I guess it’s easier to get visibly outraged and “boycott” a business that most of us were never going to patronize in the first place instead of the ones that we are actually contributing to.
Kangol2
Sorry, but your dichotomy is a caricature. Drumpf is so pro-business he’s killing a number of industries (factory farms, domestic small scale manufacturing, renewables, any industries that rely on exports, etc.), while most of the Democrats are nowhere as far to the left as you are claiming. Hell, even Obama did all he could to help the banks and Wall Street, and he was decried as a socialist by the right.
Second, my tax dollars subsidize those businesses quite a bit. They subsidize the roads they utilize, the electrical grid they rely on, the internet they could not function without, all kinds of land use, etc. They pay for the public education of their children (and any vouchers or rebates they get if they’re going the voucher or private school route), health care for their employees (my plan is taxed), and so on. In fact, the more we cut taxes on corporations and the super-rich, the more middle and working-class people have to make up the difference, including by paying for the increase in interest rates because of all of the borrowing.
So it’s no “free” ride for anyone, least of all the 99%.
willcutabitch
Political donations are public information. If you feel that the gays are unwittingly giving business to those they find unsavory, then call those businesses out. Until then, spare us your hypotheticals.
Brian
That’s the thing though, I just don’t care. I know the reality of how the world operates. I just think it’s dumb to get up in arms about something like this when we are all helping rich, evil guys do far worse things every day.
It’s a freaking fundraiser during election season. It’s not a news story that a wealthy old white guy is a Trump supporter. It’s faux outrage at it’s finest.
willcutabitch
If you just don’t care then shut up, stop your whining, and get out of the way.
Brian
If it weren’t for people whining, Queerty would have no reason to exist.
PoetDaddy
This character Brian who drops his bile here way too often must be a really miserable human being. Anyway, I’m tired of reading his self-hating negativity. So good-bye to Qweerty and Brian in particular. Get help, Brian, while you still can.
Brian
Wanna leave me your email address?
Aires the Ram
I don’t always agree with ‘Brian’, but I sure am agreeing with him here. We all spend our money locally, with the exception of mortgages and credit cards. Boycotts are stupid, and only hurt the working people anyhow. For Christ’s sake, we all put gasoline in our cars, do you know the politics of the boards of directors of Exxon-Mobil, Shell, et. al., plus the hundreds of gasoline distributors that actually deliver the gasoline to your gas station, and do you know the politics of the owners/franchisee’s of the places where you actually pump your gas? Fast Answer: NO YOU DON’T
Do you know the politics of the owners/boards of directors of the grocery store you frequent? Fast Answer: NO YOU DON’T.
Just because you hear that so-and-so who owns business such-and-such, voted for Trump, isn’t grounds to get your panties in a bunch and start this boycott bul&*sh*&i&t.
Just because someone is successful in business and makes a lot of money, doesn’t mean they are an evil person, as so many of you suggest. There’s always somebody who has more money and more success than YOU DO, there’s always somebody who’s better looking, what the hell kind of twisted “logic” is in your minds to deem them EVIL, when all they are is upscale from you???
The bottom line of this entire discussion is that your candidate LOST THE 2016 ELECTION, and you don’t like who WON. Tough sh*i%t. Pull your pants up like a big boy and get out there and enjoy the short amount of years we’re given on this planet. I couldn’t stand Obama, all 8 years of it, but I didn’t hang my head low and whine and cry, because in spite of the fact that I couldn’t stand him, my life was pretty damn good anyway, because I (read: ME), made sure of it. A little bit of that medicine would go a whole long way today.
Cam
Translation: The right wing account that consistently defends anti-LGBTQ bigots on here doesn’t want people boycotting the businesses of a man who is funding bigots.
What a shock.
willcutabitch
No, we do not know the political affiliations of every worker in every industry BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT ALL HOSTING POLITICAL FUNDRAISERS. Everything you spewed is nonsense. Consumers can patronize whomever they want. Pull up your pants like a big boy and deal with THAT.
DuMaurier
Yeesh. The reaction made sense when the first impression was that Ross “owned” these companies (a misconception that’s been cleared up for most of us, but not Queerty), but he doesn’t; he’s not even the majority stockholder in the corporation that does own them. He’s literally just a (yes, major) stockholder. If you’re going to boycott every company owned by a corporation that some unsavory characters owns stock in (because they bought it or their 401K did), you might as well start looking now for a cave to retreat to and practice killing for food, because buying just about anything is gonna be out of the question.
Aires the Ram
Bingo!! Thanks for that post DuMaurier.
Cam
Except you’re lying, he is an owner and the profits from these companies directly fund anti-LGBT bigoted politicians.
But nice try.
DuMaurier
@Cam, no; the “owner” of Equinox, SoulCycle, etc, is a corporation called Related Cos, in which Ross owns a whole lot of stock. Presumably he makes money from this stock which he then spends on things like helping Trump get re-elected. Which is depressing. But it’s a world away from a situation like Chick-fil-a, where the corporate bosses who actually run the company fund anti-LGBT causes. Or where a business discriminates against gay and lesbian people (which no one’s accused Equinox of doing[!]) There is simply no way to function in the world if we boycott every product and service offered by a corporation that has nasty, horrible people as stockholders.
jcoberkrom
I hadn’t heard of Equinox before this brouhaha !
Sounds like a place where a fool and his money are soon parted.
Bob LaBlah
Your close. Its the gym they all fled to after David Barton’s gym closed its doors overnight and didn’t refund anyone their money.
Doug
Everything I’m reading keeps telling me Equinox is a gay gym… in San Francisco the only people that go there are the wealthy straight techies. It’ll be interesting to see how many of them cancel their memberships.