The Resistance comes for Equinox, SoulCycle and their billionaire owner
Source: Washington Post
The Resistance comes for Equinox, SoulCycle and their billionaire owner
By Helaine Olen
Opinion writer
August 8 at 1:15 PM
On Monday, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.) set off a furious debate when he tweeted the names of San Antonio residents who donated $2,800, the maximum amount allowed, to President Trump’s reelection campaign. Yes, it’s public information. On the other hand, as others have pointed out, these people are not public figures, and releasing their names on social media could set them up for harassment that they are ill-prepared to defend themselves from.
A day later, Shannon Coulter, the marketing and digital consultant who founded #GrabYourWallet, showed Castro a better way — go for the big money. And I mean really big. “This Friday the SoulCycle and Equinox Fitness chairman is throwing a fundraising lunch for Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign. Tickets are $100,000 each. Adding to the list,” she tweeted, with “the list” referring to her campaign to get people to boycott companies doing business with the Trump family, or supporting their politics.
Coulter linked to a Post article discussing a fundraiser that Stephen Ross, the founder and chairman of the Related Companies, and who has an estimated net worth of $7.7 billion, will host for Trump on Friday in the Hamptons. The event will likely raise millions of dollars for the president’s reelection effort. Thanks to Coulter, all of this began circulating on social media, especially in relation to two companies: Among Related Companies’s assets is the popular upscale gym Equinox, which in turn owns PURE Yoga, Blink Fitness and SoulCycle, the high-speed-cycling-meets-positive-affirmations exercise class. On Twitter, #BoycottEquinox quickly trended. Actor Billy Eichner quickly tweeted out he canceled his Equinox membership, while Sophia Bush publicly swore off SoulCycle. I’m guessing neither knew who owned these companies less than 24 hours earlier.
Why the fury? The Related Companies is popularly understood as a real estate company — it is the developer behind New York’s Hudson Yards — but through Equinox, SoulCycle and similar brands, it also invests in companies that make urban life worth living in the view of upscale residents, many of whom identify as progressive. (Hillary Clinton, for instance, received 86 percent of the 2016 vote in Manhattan and 85 percent in West Hollywood.) For companies such as Equinox and SoulCycle, liberal virtues are part of their brands. Equinox gives money to LGBTQ charities, and generally receives applause for it. (See headlines such as “These 50+ Brands are Celebrating Pride By Giving Back to the LGBT Community.”) SoulCycle boasts about its philanthropy. Heck, Chelsea Clinton hosted a fundraiser for her mother at a Tribeca SoulCycle in New York in 2016. Left-leaning city dwellers, who think they are virtuous when they go to these temples of fitness, suddenly realized some of their money might be going to a keep a president they despise in office.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/08/resistance-comes-equinox-soulcycle-their-billionaire-owner/
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