Parents Want a Social Media Ban & The ESG Tide is Turning - Top 3 Takeaways – February 21st, 2024
- Bring on the ban? One of the hottest topics, if not the hottest, in this year’s state legislative session has been the state’s proposed ban on social media access for minors. And if state legislators give Floridians, and most especially parents, what they want – they’ll pass the ban and Governor DeSantis will sign it into law. The Social Media Use for Minors bill, which recently passed the House in a mostly bipartisan vote, is on track this week in the Senate as well. The legislation as written would ban social media accounts for children under 16. It’s something Governor DeSantis has expressed reservations about signing should it arrive on his desk. In January when asked about the proposal he said this: I’m sympathetic to, as a parent, what’s going on with our youth. But I also understand that to just say that someone that’s 15 just cannot have it no matter what, even if the parent consents, that may create some legal issues. My wife would go to great lengths to ensure they’re not on social media. I do think it’s a problem. I think social media has been a net negative for our youth, without question. Now, having said that, there have been other states that have tried to do similar things that have met resistance in the courts. Not to say courts are always right about this, but anything I do, I want a pathway for this to actually stick. Based on the first statewide polling of the topic it appears that over two-thirds of Floridians want to at least try to make it stick. Polling just out from Cygnal shows broad bi-partisan support of the issue with 79% of Florida’s Republicans, 64% of Independents and 57% of Democrats, an average of 67% of Floridians statewide, wanting the child social media ban to become law. And as large as that number is, it’s even greater when only parents are considered where support rises to 69%. Not that the Florida legislature has legislated according to polls in the DeSantis era, but one might imagine that if there are senators who are on the fence, this data might potentially sway them. Perhaps even the governor too. Speaking of which, this piece of legislation marks a bit of a change in the legislature. Since the onset of the DeSantis administration, the governor has been the driving force behind high profile and high impact policies passed in this state. Should the child social media ban pass, as it now appears likely to do, it would mark the first time the legislature would have successfully acted independently of the governor’s leadership on a major policy position. And that might also mean it won’t be the last.
- The tide is turning. For years the social tide in this country and around the world has been traveling in one direction. So far left that the homosexual alphabet added letters and symbols while staging a hostile takeover of June. So far left that people have put pronouns in their business profiles and even in the subject lines of their emails (which btw, I never open – the ones prefaced with pronouns that is). So far left that if you mention “all lives matter” you’re called a racist. So far left that the United States Supreme Court had to step in to tell colleges and universities it’s not actually ok to discriminate on the basis of one’s skin color as long that the people being discriminated against are Asian or Caucasian. So far left that there’s at least a 50-50 chance that the company you work for has hired a “diversity director” that has subjected you to diversity training. And yes, the pendulum has swung so far left that you haven’t often even been able to invest without hearing about ESG (which is actually at the epicenter of all of the absurdities). The first indication that the tide had begun to turn happened a few weeks ago when the number one song on iTunes became a song that was never played on the radio – but that was talked about on talk radio – Tom MacDonald and Ben Shapiro’s FACTS. It’s the song that took on all of society’s absurdities and that included an all-time great line that I’ll use if anyone ever asks for my pronouns again (I’m the man, I’m the man who don’t respect you). As fun as that was and is, something more substantive has recently happened.
- The two biggest banks have reversed course on their ESG initiatives. JP Morgan Chase and BlackRock have dropped out of the UN’s climate alliance known as the Climate Action 100+. And they’re not alone as others such as State Street Financial have done the same. Last year NBC News polling showed that a majority of Americans no longer believed that people were predominately judged on the content of their character but rather on the color of their skin (or other superficial differentiators). Ironically, this was the opposite of MLK’s dream. And what that data appeared to have revealed was that finally a majority of Americans had had enough of the pendulum swinging so radically far left. What we’re seeing in the early going this year is action based upon it. The tide is turning, and the pendulum appears to now being headed back towards a more sensible direction. It also happens to be happening at a time and in a year in which the ultimate politically incorrect candidate will be on the presidential ballot. One can rest assured that Donald Trump doesn’t care what you think your pronouns are. He’s not interested in struggle sessions. He’s not going to treat you as though you’re not a perfectly capable person because you’re Black. And most of all he’s not focused on what the UN wants for us, he’s focused on what’s best for us. Just over a month ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos, I highlighted the chatter among executives that Donald Trump was expected to win the presidential election this year. In so doing I mentioned this instructive quote from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon that now looks especially instructive. Quoting Dimon when he was asked about Trump... Just take a step back, and be honest. He was kind of right about NATO. He was kind of right about immigration, he grew the economy quite well. Trade. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China. I don’t like how he said things about Mexico, but he wasn’t wrong about some of these critical issues. And that’s why they’re voting for him. Based on Dimon’s decision and that of a few of his fellow Wall Street executives, it seems as though Dimon believes Trump has been right on ESG too. Course corrections in multiple aspects of our society are already underway with the ultimate course correction setting up for us to participate in this November.