An election victory for Donald Trump in November would likely mean an end to the “ludicrous” Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) requirements forced on businesses by the Biden-Harris administration, conservative activist Robby Starbuck told the Washington Examiner in an exclusive interview published Thursday.
Starbuck himself has engineered, through his X account, a massive pushback against companies that have spent time and money implementing “woke” policies that bolster the leftist narrative that social engineering, rather than productivity and profits, should be their primary goal.
The conservative influencer and filmmaker, with more than 650,000 social media followers, has successfully challenged some of the nation’s largest companies into reversing their DEI policies, including, as CatholicVote has reported, Toyota, Stanley Black and Decker, Molson Coors, John Deere, Lowe’s, Tractor Supply, Ford, and Harley-Davidson.
At the start of a campaign, Starbuck typically messages company executives that he plans to expose their “woke” policies, among which are programs that fund LGBT pride events for preschoolers, pressuring employees to list their “preferred pronouns” on communications, openly supporting the “Equality Act” to allow boys into girls’ bathrooms, requiring employee training on how to become LGBT “allies,” and participating in corporate rating index challenges from LGBT activist groups such as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).
The architect of this intense consumer movement reflected on how the upcoming presidential election might affect the controversial corporate policies he targets.
“I think after Trump is elected — with the hope that that happens — I think what people could expect is that this would definitely be something that federally would change,” Starbuck told the Examiner. “You know, you would stop seeing the ludicrous requirements that have been put in place that have forced many businesses into adopting woke policies.”
Starbuck said he expects a new Trump administration would likely eliminate DEI in the federal government, perhaps even through an administrative position that oversees the deconstruction of “woke” infrastructure. Subsequently, Starbuck predicted, Trump’s plan to dismantle those systems will trickle down to the private sector.
“I think it will ultimately bear fruit throughout not just the government but the entire corporate landscape,” Starbuck said.
In June 2021, the Biden-Harris administration released its executive order titled “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility [DEIA] in the Federal Workforce,” which essentially installed a DEI officer in most federal agencies.
The order stated:
The head of each agency shall make advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility a priority component of the agency’s management agenda and agency strategic planning. The head of each agency shall implement the Government-wide DEIA Plan … and such other related guidance as issued from time to time by the Director of OPM [Office of Personnel Management] or the Deputy Director for Management of OMB [Office of Management and Budget].
The Biden-Harris order that claims the federal government “should have a workforce that reflects the diversity of the American people” translated into, among other things, “ensur[ing] that all Federal employees have their respective gender identities accurately reflected and identified in the workplace.”
The pressure to conform to the federal order has been severe for companies, said Starbuck, who shared with the Examiner that one company that acquiesced to his own counterpressure to roll back its “woke” policies told him it would have wanted to cut them back even further – but could not because it had a Defense Department contract.
Starbuck added, nevertheless, that a Harris win in November would likely entrench DEI even further in federal policy, an outcome that would filter down into private business.
“It’s gonna get much worse from the standpoint of codifying this within the law,” he said. “I think that you’ll see even more rigid requirements when it comes to grants and contracts, and I think that that will institutionalize it further in certain sectors.”
Still, the conservative activist noted that, even currently, he and his army of followers have managed to effect significant change in individual companies by exerting pressure to end support of their products.
“Starbuck said if just 15% or 20% of customers are willing to pull their money, corporate behavior will change,” the Examiner reported.
The Republican influencer also observed that while the company executives who feel forced to implement DEI welcome his push to give them the chance to prove the “woke” policies are a liability, those who are “true believers” in DEI also experience his pressure as a sign of the reality they could be dealing with a massive boycott.
“If you just look at the economic reality of what we’ve done, when Tractor Supply was our focus for three weeks, they lost almost $3 billion in market cap,” Starbuck said. “We’re giving an excuse, in a way, to companies that already have fatigue on these policies that have done nothing but suck money and suck time with all the division that they’ve caused.”
Read Starbuck’s entire interview with Zach Halaschak at the Washington Examiner here.