Frank Gärtner - stock.adobe.com
CV NEWSFEED // “It’s time to expose John Deere,” wrote conservative American filmmaker and videographer Robby Starbuck on Tuesday. In a series of posts on X, the outspoken conservative sounded the alarm on all the ways the beloved brand of America’s farmers has “gone woke.”
John Deere “has been one of the most beloved brands by conservative farmers but recently on CEO John May’s watch, they’ve gone woke,” Starbuck wrote.
He shared an eight-minute video exposing recent internal actions at the company, from diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies to anti-white and anti-Christian training sessions and the promotion of gender ideology among employees.
The video began with an overview of John Deere’s policy for pronoun usage in all formal methods of communication. The company also sponsored a pride event called “Capital City Pride, Little Rainbow Run,” for children as young as three years old, the video revealed.
The video featured screenshots, videos, and photos to corroborate Starbuck’s claims.
On X, Starbuck listed a number of other ideological steps John Deere has taken in recent years.
“Here’s some of what we found,” he wrote:
• Funding a pride event for kids as young as 3
• “Genderbread man” training
• They ask employees to list their “preferred pronouns” on all communications
• Bill Gates is listed as their largest shareholder
• John Deere celebrated their accounting and finance team taking United Way’s 21-day “United For Equity” program
• When I did “United For Equity” program it promoted Ibram Kendi, the woke children’s book “Anti-Racist Baby”, “Awake to Woke to Work”, a podcast on the concept of “Whiteness”, woke activist Robin DiAngelo, bigotry against Christians who supposedly have “Christian Privilege” and more
• The woke policies have spread across the global John Deere brand with many of their DEI policies also being forced on their Latin America and India branches
• LGBTQ & race based identity groups at corporate
• A total commitment to DEI policies
• 95/100 CEI score from the HRC
The evidence provided by Starbuck included a video of a John Deere Facebook post titled “Deere Takes Pride- Rainbow Ally.” The post was captioned: “Watch our leaders sharing their story as a Rainbow Ally at John Deere.”
In the video, John Deere employees are seen in an interview setting in which they proudly say “DEI is no longer an option, it is a business imperative.”
Starbuck stated that more evidence would be released in the coming weeks.
“To put it mildly, John Deere seems to have forgotten who their customers are,” Starbuck wrote. “Having a farm myself, I’m disgusted that a once great American brand is now taking this turn to seemingly embrace leftist policies that are diametrically opposed to the values of most farmers.”
The filmmaker announced his plans to do a deeper dive into the funding and actions of the influential company.
“I plan to report what we’ve found piece by piece so customers and potential customers are informed on the brand’s policies,” he wrote. “If they’re proud of adopting woke policies then John Deere and their CEO should be overjoyed by my reporting on their policies, positions, donations and culture.”
“Consumer is king,” he added:
My goal with this reporting is never destruction. My goal is to inform consumers about the values major companies are adopting so they can make choices about what they’re willing to support.
When we use our voices and wallets to vote our values, we can change the world and we can restore great American companies to a culture of sanity, meritocracy and culture war neutrality OR we can inspire competitors to step up to the plate to fight for our business.
Many X users chimed in on the bombshell post, with one user shooting off a message to the company: “Drag Queens don’t drive tractors @JohnDeere. Conservative farmers do. Boycott them.”
“Private and Public woke companies must feel the power of the pocketbook if they break this contract with their customers,” the account Behind The News Show replied. “John Deere, you should be ashamed of yourselves! You will learn, if you go woke you will go broke!”
“Seems like John Deere learned nothing from Tractor Supply,” another user commented.
As CatholicVote reported in June: “After facing backlash for its pro-LGBT policies, Tractor Supply has issued a detailed apology, pledging to cut DEI roles and goals, and to cease its sponsoring of ‘Pride’ festivals.”
“According to an X post from retired collegiate swimmer and female athletes advocate Riley Gaines, Tractor Supply lost $2 billion before it reversed course,” CatholicVote’s report noted. “‘I believe this is the strongest “apology” statement we’ve seen from a corporation so far,’ she wrote.”
Starbuck ended his Tuesday post optimistically, expressing hope that John Deere would change its policies.
“As we saw with my Tractor Supply stories, millions of people spoke out against these types of woke policies and ultimately Tractor Supply did the right thing by eliminating woke policies, donations, trainings and positions because of your voices.”
John Deere has yet to comment on the allegations.
