A liberal corporate megalith has 90 days to clean up their act, the warning advises, or the penalties will hit them in the wallet. Florida’s conservative Governor, Ron DeSantis, just ticked off Rashida Tlaib by threatening to boycott Unilever, the company responsible for Ben & Jerry’s. Florida is only the latest of a growing list of conservative run states where they won’t put up with “woke” nonsense and discrimination.
A clear warning
Since Ben & Jerry’s decided they aren’t going to sell any more ice cream to Jews, at least not the ones in Israel, Florida joined a growing list of states warning that they won’t put up with it. They told parent company Unilever to get with the program or the state won’t use their stock in pension funds.
It’s not clear how much they’re currently holding but the bean counters imply that the penalty will really hurt. Meanwhile, conservatives from coast-to-coast are boycotting AXE, Dove, Hellmans, Lipton, and all the other Unilever brands, just for fun.
As spelled out in the warning just issued by DeSantis, Unilever has 90 days “to reverse the company’s boycott targeting Israel or else face harsh consequences.” The biggest one the papers are talking about is that Florida will make state pension funds drop every cent of Unilever stock they’re holding like a hot rock.
The state board of administration, which DeSantis sits on, along with the CFO Jimmy Patronis and state Attorney General Ashley Moody, wrote a serious nastygram to Unilever.
“By placing Ben & Jerry’s Fortune 500 parent company Unilever on our List of Scrutinized Companies that Boycott Israel, Florida is sending a message to corporate America that we will defend our strong relationship with the Jewish State,” the warning reads.
DeSantis “will not stand idly by as woke corporate ideologues seek to boycott and divest from our ally, Israel.”
Prohibited investments
As confirmed by the Executive Director & Chief Investment Officer of Florida’s SBA, Ash Williams, Unilever’s foul and despicable actions fall under “Prohibited investments by the State Board of Administration; companies that boycott Israel.”
That defines the deviant companies as “refusing to deal, terminating business activities, or taking other actions to limit commercial relations with Israel, or persons or entities doing business in Israel or in Israeli-controlled territories, in a discriminatory manner.” As soon as they heard what Ben & Jerry’s were up to, they sent a warning notice of their own.
They contacted Unilever directly to have them pass the warning along to the liberal progressives down at the ice cream factory. They hoped the parent company could talk some sense into them. They wrote to “request an engagement on behalf of the SBA and to make clear that Unilever as owner of Ben & Jerry’s would be affected by Florida law.”
Unilever said they stood behind the social justice decision. They don’t care that “the SBA would be prohibited from further investment in Unilever and affiliated companies if they were placed on the Scrutinized Companies that Boycott Israel List.” They got added to it on July 29, 2021.
The clock is ticking like a nuclear time bomb. As the warning makes crystal clear, “it may become subject to investment prohibition if the company does not cease a boycott of Israel within 90 days of being placed on the list.”
Boycotts work two ways and conservative consumers won’t hesitate to boycott liberal products. It’s time to vote with our dollars since the ones dropped in the ballot box don’t come out the other side quite the way they’re supposed to.