You would have to be living under a rock in the United States if you did not notice the large, and seemingly growing gap, between the political parties at this time.  I’m guessing that at no time in my life have I seen such a large chasm between the beliefs of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

 

And, in November of this year we will have the mid-term elections where all seats of the U.S. Congress are up for re-election as well as many other positions.  When we are in an even year where all U.S. Congressional seats are up for grabs there is no geographic area of the United States that won’t be touched in hearing about all the elections.

 

When the perceived stakes are high and there is universal knowledge of all the elections saying or doing the wrong thing from a Death Care business point of view could damage your business. . . . So, be careful how you express yourself in going about your business’ messaging in the next 7 months or so.

 

Lately, the Target Corporation has been in the news —  partly because of how their business has suffered — pertaining to how they handled the trends of the LGBTQ community and later the DEI community.  If you remember, the company offered a “Pride” selection of merchandise that gained favor with the LGBTQ community.  Then in 2023 the company “. . .scaled back in-store displays and reduced product availability . . .  following intense conservative backlash and employee safety threats”.

 

In that case, the original Pride merchandise offended conservative shoppers and then, pulling the product lines back, offended the more liberal shoppers.

 

Later, Target announced that they would be moving forward with positive Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts.  And then later, according to this USA Today article, the company rolled back their DEI efforts. . . . again, first irritatating conservatives and later irritating liberals.

 

I certainly don’t know Target’s motives in these moves but do realize that their public stances were not well-taken with the differing groups at differing times.  By making public announcements and then backing off of those decisions, they succeeded in the business-losing result of  alienating both factions and turning back any loyalty that they had from those customer groups.

 

If you look at Target’s sales, according to Seeking Alpha, from 2023 until most recently with their 2025 sales you will see that they dropped about 4.1% over that time period. . . . and that is a time period that even if the same amount of product was purchased, sales should have rose about 5% annually simply because of inflation.

 

Contrast those sales to the sales of their biggest competitor WalMart whose sales grew 16.7% over that time period and you might concur that Target’s messaging to its clientele possibly had something to do with their reduction in revenues.

 

Learning a Valuable Lesson — I learned a valuable lesson from my dad about political messaging when I was in 9th grade.  One of my classmate’s father was running for the U.S. Congress and my friend asked if we wanted a sign for him in our yard.  I knew my parents liked the candidate and were pulling for him so I said “Yes”.  Anyway, when my father came home from work that night and saw the sign for candidate Jon Haaven that said “This is a Haaven House“, his response was as such as I related in an article of Funeral Director Daily from July 2024:

 

“Needless to say, my dad came home and inquired about the sign.  I proudly proclaimed that “I got it from the Haavens and put it up”.  As my dad was great at calmly doing, he explained to me that our funeral home served all people. . . all races, all nationalities, all church denominations, and all political parties.  It would probably not be a good idea to alienate those people who opposed Mr. Haaven by having a sign in our yard. . . . . . That all made sense to me.”

 

So, you probably have your own political views, but I might suggest that you balance and think about the repercussions about being bold with them in your community as they may very well alienate a part of your community from using your business in the future.

 

You may very well want to stress your political affiliation and beliefs and that is your perogative as an American citizen.  And, for those of you that choose to do so I have no issues with . . . . other than you are aware that it may affect your business in a negative (or maybe) positive fashion.

 

Related — Funeral Director Daily article of July 1, 2024, titled “Politics, political correctness, and your funeral home“.

 

More news from the world of Death Care:

• San Joaquin River Trust suspends use of composted humans on ranch.  Video news story and print article.  GV Wire Live (CA)
• Businessmen deny fraud at collapsed funeral firm Safe Hands.  The Sundayb Times (Great Britain)
• Korean funeral home hit with first-ever antitrust action over kickback scheme.  Seoul Economic Daily (South Korea)
• “A maze of uncertainty”:  Okanagan family struggling to find crematory capable of handling a 700-pound man.  Castnet (British Columbia, Canada)

 

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