Proprietor Politics: Partisanship in Small Business
(WTAQ) — In the increasingly divisive state of our nation, new marketing platforms are enabling small local businesses to leverage their political beliefs to connect with like-minded customers.
Political polarization is defined as “The movement of political views and actions away from the center and toward more extreme views and policies.”
It’s not just people who are divided. Companies, brands, media; it’s all politicized.
Over 80 small businesses in Northeast Wisconsin have signed up for Public Square. The conservative platform was founded in 2022 by Michael Seifert.
“We are the nation’s largest marketplace of businesses that are pro-life, pro-family, and pro-freedom,” said Seifert in a 2023 interview. “We ultimately believe that America’s economy is under attack by globalists who desire to sell out our country and the values that made it special.”
Public Square calls itself an ‘anti woke’, parallel economy platform designed to help conservative consumers find small businesses owned by like minded people.
That’s what business owners like Frederick Schroeder from Menasha are looking for. He owns Turf and Tundra Property Solutions.
“Donald Trump was easily elected over Kamala Harris. I don’t think we, as American taxpayers, have been exposed to the truth in four years. I think that we have been lied to, manipulated, and basically pushed to the limit.”
The first of the core values that businesses must agree to on Public Square states “We are united in our commitment to freedom and truth — that’s what makes us Americans.”
Andrea Fanta is the owner of Soul Purpose inside Bay Park Square Mall in Green Bay.
“I definitely value freedom, but my definition of freedom varies from a lot of people on the other side,” said Fanta. “Freedom of my medical decisions, freedom of my rights to choose anything in my life.”
Fanta is not on Public Square. She has her business listed on Local Liberal. Local Liberal has the same idea of connecting consumers to businesses based on politics; but it’s for liberals.
Local Liberal was started by Melissa Adams in 2022. Like Public Square, Local Liberal has their own set of values businesses must adhere to.
“Equality and diversity makes us stronger, everyone should have the right to love who they choose, access to reproductive freedom, sustainability, a quality education, they also agree to economic justice and fair wages,” said Adams.
Seifert started Public Square because he was frustrated seeing liberal owned companies take a stand on their values.
“They actually, genuinely, ideologically hate our country,” said Siefert. “They hate the values that built it, and at the end of the day, they see the family unit, a strong family unit, as a threat to their power.”
This ties into the next core value of Public Square. Businesses on Public Square, like Gillet Handiworks owned by Wendy Vorpahl, agree that “We will always protect the family unit and celebrate the sanctity of every life.”
“That was something that affected me when I was pregnant with my youngest,” said Vorpahl. “My three older sons fell on the autism spectrum and because of that, I was afraid to have any more. While some might see that as a reason to not keep a pregnancy, I did, and I’m very happy I did.”
The family structure is important to Justin Duell who owns The G Farm in Larsen; which is on Public Square.
“I’m the one that’s doing all the work outside. We have roles and strengths that myself and my wife each have, and we each try to thrive inside of those spaces,” said Duell. “So I’m not making sourdough bread or cinnamon buns in the house this morning. I come in and Kim has everything ready for me.”
Soul Purpose is living by the tenants of Local Liberal. They host SAGA, or the Sexuality and Gender Alliance twice a month, and they make sustainability a forefront of their store.
“A lot of our classes are used with recycled materials. We take our ‘oopsie’ t-shirts, and then we marry them together and make cool stuff out of them,” said Fanta.
But Ron Fischer, owner of Hortonville’s R and R Classic Rides on Public Square, is skeptical of what he calls ‘the green agenda.’
“You’ve got a green agenda and you’ve got a common sense agenda basically. I’m dealing with cars that are smoky and rusty and old and loud and that’s the way they’re supposed to be,” said Fischer. “So to be able to have the resources to continue to get parts and materials; I mean, one of the agendas was like eliminating combustion engines, but that’s a thousand percent of my business.”
Public Square’s core values list also says “Our Constitution is non-negotiable — government isn’t the source of our rights, so it can’t take them away.”
“God gave us the rights,” said Fischer. “My personal opinion is that if you don’t believe in God, you shouldn’t be in government. Because if you don’t believe in God, in a higher power, someone that you have to answer to, you can’t effectively and fairly govern.”
Matt and Felicia Larsen are on Public Square; they own FML Flippers in New London and take the constitution pretty seriously.
“It’s posted in the business, we teach it to the kids,” said Felicia. “It’s the reason you have the freedom to go out and stand against something or stand for it.”
A similar sentiment was expressed by Tony Badgett from Oconto; he owns Leather and Lace DJ Services on Local Liberal.
“I feel like you have to stand up for something or you fall for everything,” said Badgett. “And the things that are the most important, our immediate future right now is our democracy.”
Badgett says it was in the height of the George Floyd controversy that politics first came into play in his business.
“I lost clients,” said Badgett. “We literally had to disassociate ourselves with certain individuals because their views were so different than ours that it actually had an impact on our personal lives.”
One of the ways it affected Badgett and his family was their safety. One instance with a local bar owner stood out to Badgett.
“The Floyd stuff happened, and we clashed on our views for civil rights and he became aggressively like… ‘F*** you and you’re a [unintelligible]’ and I’m like, ‘Whoa, dude, you’re trippin dude. You’re gonna be kidding me. That’s it, I’m done with you.'”
So how much do people actually pay attention and create meaningful spending habits around politics? Professor Jerald Podair of Lawrence University in Appleton envisioned a hypothetical situation of buying medicine for a sick child.
“One may help him. It’s put out by a company and they do all the right things. And the other one you know is going to help your kid. So which one are you going to buy?” asked Podair. “You’re going to look me in the eye and you’re going to tell me you’re going to listen to your kid cough for the next five days? I don’t think you’re going to do that.”
But some business owners say being on political websites has helped them tremendously.
“We have a bakery in our town that has taken a huge stand on their progressive policies,” said Adams. “They have lines out the door every week now that they have done that.”
Although on a different platform, Schroeder has had a similar outcome.
“I’ve seen an increase in our commercial accounts, business owners that have contacted us through that site. So it’s doing what it was designed to do,” he said.
But as these sites gain popularity, more people with opposite political beliefs are using them to find where they don’t want to shop.
“If a liberal is going to go on Public Square and attack me publicly, let them. I invite it,” said Schroeder.
“Honestly I don’t want that money. It’s personal to me,” said Fanta.
And could consumers using sites telling them where to shop based on their politics contribute to a further divide of Americans?
“I think that it kind of helps to fix the problem,” said Duell. “I just think that we miss how many people that are in the middle. But people on the left are just so far to the left in where they’re putting their ideas and money and direction.”
“Does it create more division, or does it help people find their groups of people when they were lonely in the first place? Like they were already divided, but they were just isolated and divided and now they have a group of people,” said Fanta.
What would happen to our economy if conservatives are only shopping with conservative owned businesses, and liberals are only shopping with liberal owned businesses?
“That would be very bad for us culturally, but it also would be very bad for us economically,” said Podair. “It could be the equivalent of a stock market crash or the impact of a trade war, a tariff war. It would mean that half the country would not be buying something and I think it would be a tremendous burden on our economy.”
Since the concept of politically motivated platforms that influence where you shop is relatively new, there really isn’t any research on their long term implications.
Maybe all we can do for now is keep making informed consumer decisions in our ever changing political climate, whatever your perception of an informed decision might be.
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