Here’s Story #2 on how to stand up to Right-wing bullies.

In 2014, the Arizona Republican legislature passed Senate Bill 1062.

This allowed business owners to legally discriminate against gay and lesbian customers—including the right to refuse medical care to them.  

Its intent: To appease the hatred of gays and lesbians by the religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican party. 

Gays and their supporters reacted by threatening a legal business and tourism boycott of Arizona. And the business community and its supporters, alarmed, took notice.

• Large businesses—such as Apple, American Airlines, AT&T, Delta Airlines, Verizon and Intel—publicly opposed the measure.
• With Super Bowl XL1X scheduled to be played in 2015 at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee expressed concern.
• Arizona’s United States Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake publicly urged Governor Jan Brewer to veto the measure, citing worries about the economic impact on the state’s businesses.

Faced with a choice between monetary greed and ideological fanaticism, Brewer chose to veto the legislation on February 26, 2014.  

Governor Jan Brewer

Suddenly, Right-wingers who had anticipated becoming persecutors now claimed themselves to be victims. Among their rants on Twitter:

• “CNN led full court media press to take away rights of Christians. Just the beginning. Using tolerance as weapon against us. Wake up.”  –John Nolte (@NolteNC)
• “Not sure what the GOP stands for when it stands against religious freedom out of pure fear of political correctness.”  –Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro)
• “Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer makes Christians in her state second class citizens.” –toddstarnes (@toddstarnes)
• “A sad day for Arizonans who cherish and understand religious liberty.” –The Center for Arizona Policy 

American Rightists believed they had a right to withhold their business services from those they hated.

But they considered it unfair and even demonic for gays and their supporters to withhold monies from discriminatory Arizona businesses.  

Story #3:

On February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz slaughtered two faculty members and 15 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. His weapon of choice: An AR-15 assault rifle, often favored by gun massacre killers.

Among the students who survived the carnage: 17-year-old David Hogg. He quickly joined the student-led gun control advocacy group Never Again, becoming one of its best-known spokesmen. 

David Hogg

He and his fellow student activists were immediately targeted for vicious insults and even death threats by the National Rifle Association and its shills—especially those in Congress and the Fox News Network. 

One of these shills was Fox News host Laura Ingraham. On March 28, not content with attacking Hogg’s efforts to ban assault weaponry, she attacked him personally, tweeting:

“David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA…totally predictable given acceptance rates.)” 

Hogg hadn’t been able to get into UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, or UC Irvine, despite having a 4.2 grade point average. 

For many Twitter users, this was beyond the pale, and they made their anger known: 

“Laura, you’re a parent. This is pretty deplorable.”

“Can’t imagine why any adult would make fun of a kid over college rejections, let alone a kid who’s been through what the Parkland kids have.”

“What is the purpose of this tweet? What is wrong with you? Are you actually proud of this? Regardless of your political beliefs and motivations, THIS is how you choose to present yourself? You must be so sad, angry and scared.”  

  Laura Ingraham 

But it fell to David Hogg to strike back in a way guaranteed to frighten even the most fanatical Rightists. 

“I’m not going to stoop to her level and go after her on a personal level,” he said. “I’m going to go after her advertisers.”

He posted the following tweet to his 600,000 Twitter followers: 

“Pick a number 1-12 contact the company next to that #  

“Top Laura Ingraham Advertisers 

1. @sleepnumber
2. @ATT
3. Nutrish
4. @Allstate & @esurance
5. @Bayer
6. @RocketMortgage Mortgage
7. @LibertyMutual
8. @Arbys
9. @TripAdvisor
10. @Nestle
11. @hulu
12. @Wayfair

Nutrish was the first advertiser to drop its sponsorship of Ingraham’s program.  Other brands followed.  

Suddenly alarmed, Ingraham tweeted the next day: “Any student should be proud of a 4.2 GPA —incl. @DavidHogg111. On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland. For the record, I believe my show was the first to feature David…”   

Hogg dismissed her statement: “She only apologized after we went after her advertisers.” He said that he would accept her apology only if she denounced “the way your network has treated my friends and I in this fight.”  

Ingraham made no such effort She stayed silent after her tweet. Meanwhile, her advertisers continued to fall off:   

• The Atlantis
• Bayer
• Paradise Island Resort
• Office Depot
• Jenny Craig Miracle
• Ear
• Honda
• Progressive
• Hulu
• TripAdvisor
• Expedia
• Wayfair
• StitchFix
• Jos A. Bank
• Nestle and 
• Johnson & Johnson.

Although only 17 at the time, David Hogg knew it’s better to stand up to tyrants than submit to them.

He sent a message that even the most hard-core Fascists could understand: Attack me and you’ll get it right back in your ugly faces.