How small woke groups exert pressure on the majority that disagrees, as well as on corporations
John Hinderaker of Powerline has some questions about how it is that a strong majority of Americans don’t buy into the tenets of trans activism, and yet so many companies yield to the trans activists:
How can a small minority successfully bully the large majority? Why does corporate America sign on with a dissident and often unstable fringe? Why is it that normal people, not those with extreme views, are afraid to express their opinions for fear of damaging their careers? The answers to those questions hold the key to understanding politics in our current bizarre moment.
Here’s someone with some answers, at least in regard to propaganda and non-financial pressure. It’s well worth reading the whole thread.
And this article, based on an interview with a former Anheuser-Busch executive, deals with the financial pressures on corporate America to support wokeness, pressures which are not immediately apparent to the casual observer (hint: it’s not about appealing to the consumer):
‘You just have to follow the money. Take a look at BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard — they manage $20 billion worth of capital,’ [Anson Frericks] said.
Frericks said a lot of the money managed by institutional investors comes from big pension funds like those of the state of California, which put ideological pressure on the money managers.
‘They — State Street, BlackRock, Vanguard — they have to commit to ESG, diversity, equity and inclusion and adopt firm-wide commitments that they therefore then force on to all of major company in corporate America,’ said Frericks.
What’s called “institutional investors” don’t own a lot of Anheuser-Busch, but they do own a lot of Target. So I suppose this sort of pressure functions to a different extent in different companies.
I will add that one way pressure is often put on companies and on the public in general to get with the program on so many identity issues, not just transgenderism, is to frame any opposition to or disagreement with the woke agenda as a hate-mongering “ism” or “phobia.” People don’t want to be mean or intolerant, so the more that opposition is framed as mean intolerance, the more successful wokeism becomes.
But have we reached a turning point? The repercussions for Anheuser-Busch and Target would give that impression. It really depends on how serious the costs are to the companies involved, versus the benefits of wokeism. However, up till now, this method of consumers boycotting a company for political reasons has been much more prevalent on the left rather than the right. That’s probably still another reason for the present wokeness of so many companies, because till now they’ve feared the power of a leftist boycott much more than one generated by the right. They may start thinking differently about that aspect of things in the future.
Years ago, my younger brother was the finance director for a city in southern California. He wrote a letter to Business Week pointing out that public employee pension funds have a fiduciary obligation to invest for maximum return, even if that means investing in companies and industries that some find distasteful. I don’t know if that is still the case or not, but a few shareholder lawsuits might help get the attention of boards of these publicly traded companies.
This is a fight that is never going to be over, by the way, at least within our current system. If the left finds that their current strategy is no longer effective, they’ll probably quit using soft means like DEI and ESG and begin fire bombing corporate HQs or kidnapping executives.
Debar money managers from being proxies at shareholder’s meetings, for their clients or anyone else.
Sgt Joe Friday, I just read yesterday in the daily rag that political pressure is ramping up on CalPers, the huge California public employees pension fund, to invest in “approved entities” even if the returns are less. One would think that would be illegal, or at least unethical. Millions of people depend on Calpers for retirement, and its finances are already very shaky.
For the record, I now fully acknowledge that I am a bundle of “isms” and “phobias”; and I am very angry. At one point I thought that I would make a statement by only doing business with companies that resisted the pressure to make political and social declaration that I find abominable. I learned, however, that that would be impossible unless I lived a completely self sufficient lifestyle by going off the grid, raising my own food, and wearing animal skins that I harvested–or going bare.
Even Walmart has caved.
That was a very good thread, thanks for posting it. Many things become clear about the tactics, in particular the objective of prodding people / groups into shifting from passivity into alignment and then support. I’ve often thought that the purpose of prodding people into a reaction is that it becomes a form of free advertising – making the cause seem bigger than it really is.
There’s another element that I’ve been hearing about. Reportedly, the availability of low interest business loans from the major lenders is based on your ESG score. Businesses are always taking out loans, and they want the lowest interest rates. So they bump up the ESG scores to comply with the lender’s demands.
its a violation of fiduciary responsibility, but would they be prosecuted for it, certainly not in minnesota or california
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were the early instigators of this technique. Thay picked companies and told them if they didn’t play ball, they would call them racists and ruin their reputations. Many companies paid the required bribes to keep them quiet. The activist LBGQT+ people have taken it up a notch. Asking companies to glorify their perversions or they would out them as intolerant “phobics.” With the MSM pushing the agenda, many corporations are running scared. The DEI, ESG agenda was stealthily put in place to avoid “trouble” or accusations of intolerance and to virtue signal.
I abhor boycotts and shunning, but it appears that the “normals” will have to fight fire with fire. Hit them in the pocketbook. It may wake some of the corporations up to who their customers really are.
In a world where identity is now all, being the wrong identity is to be a person in danger of being canceled. Social media has made this identity politics powerful and useful to activists. It and the MSM provide them with a megaphone to go after those who don’t toe their line. Avoiding the MSM and social media is a step toward neutering the Woke megaphone.
In Target’s case, the calls are coming from inside the house, with a marketing VP (I think) who’s on the Board of GLSEN, the LGBT lobby “charity” which pushes “transgender medicine” for children, among other things.
It’s been suggested that we buy less if we can’t buy unwoke. IOW, do with less of the usual.
That would be tougher than switching beer brands, but if can be done, even if only one percent.
Been said many times, the first (pick a number, say, 90%) of sales cover expenses. Until you get beyond that, the gross profit isn’t the net profit,
For example, more care in combining errand trips might save 1% of our gas consumption. Lower temp by one degree in winter, raise it in the a/c in the summer.
Is Good Will woke? My wife and a couple of other comfortably retired people she knows get attractive, serviceable purses at Good Will for five or ten bucks. Diff goes to worth causes, 501c3 or not.
They have books for casual browsing, decent coffee mugs for a Christmas gift or to fill out the cabinet.
Non-franchise purchasing might help avoid woke.
Might think of some other things.
I have been reading an interesting book about this topic.
The person behind much of this trend is well known, Eric Holder, Obama’s “wing man.” He has been the apostle of “Woke.”
This book provides a comprehensive overview of the problem and the players involved, both on the aggressive, hard-charging left and in the nascent conservative resistance. Soukup explains what the left is doing and how and why the right must be prepared and willing to fight back to save this critical aspect of American culture from becoming another, more economically powerful version of the “woke” college campus.
The Big Picture I’ve come to:
* Society can be roughly divided into a power pyramid with three classes: upper, middle and lower.
* Currently the upper and the lower have become allied against the middle.
In the short term It’s a good strategy for the upper and the lower, since the middle has the most assets to loot.
In the long term it’s a bad strategy because societal stability depends on the middle class.
Après moi le déluge!
Lola
The Kinks, 1970
I met her in a club down in old Soho
Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola
C-O-L-A, Cola
She walked up to me and she asked me to dance
I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice she said, “Lola”
L-O-L-A, Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Well, I’m not the world’s most physical guy
But when she squeezed me tight, she nearly broke my spine
Oh, my Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Well, I’m not dumb, but I can’t understand
Why she walks like a woman and talks like a man
Oh, my Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Well, we drank champagne and danced all night
Under electric candlelight
She picked me up and sat me on her knee
She said, “Little boy, won’t you come home with me?”
Well, I’m not the world’s most passionate guy
But when I looked in her eyes, well, I almost fell for my Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
I pushed her away
I walked to the door
I fell to the floor
I got down on my knees
Well, I looked at her, and she at me
Well, that’s the way that I want it to stay
And I always want it to be that way for my Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
Except for Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Well, I’d left home just a week before
And I’d never, ever kissed a woman before
Lola smiled and took me by the hand
She said, “Little boy, gonna make you a man”
Well I’m not the world’s most masculine man
But I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man
And so is Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
miguel cervantes…”its a violation of fiduciary responsibility, but would they be prosecuted for it, certainly not in minnesota or california”
It’s a civil issue, not a criminal issue, no prosecutors involved.
These cases will likely be hard to win, management can always argue that what they are doing is *really* in the best interests of the shareholders, because attracting young employees, or whatever. Some of them are so egregious, though, that shareholder lawsuits on fiduciary responsibility grounds may stand a chance.
What this really is about is *abuse of authority*, which has become a widespread plague in our society:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/67862.html
That’s quite a thread, David.
…With great comments.
Is the trend we are now seeing—private corporations giving ironclad support to Democratic Party policies across the board…and then being supported, in turn, BY the Democratic Party (AKA “Biden”)—akin to the increasing collusion between government and the corporate sectors, IOW a kind of Fascism?
Or was it always thus? (I would like to believe that it was not, or at least that the situation was NEVER AS INCESTUOUS—and hence almost seamless, and DANGEROUS—as it is now.)
People have already been using Eisenhower’s warning about the “Military-Industrial Complex” as a prescient precursor to what is happening today: a kind of militarized “Government-Media-Infotech Complex” that heavily influences—corrupts—the dissemination of INFORMATION thus affecting a wide spectrum of social features, perhaps most prominently EDUCATION, to create a kind of Fascist political and social reality WRT top-down, invasive power, leverage and control over the individual.
I’m not even sure it could be referred to as “soft fascism”.
More like a kind of Corporatist Socialism…with authoritarian features and totalitarian potential.
(Keeping in mind the CPC model…and Klaus Schwab’s fatal attraction to that model…along with the adherence of Western, and global, political leadership and governing class—in the US, in Canada in Europe—to Schwab’s nefarious WTF policies.)
The danger currently facing the US….
Compare and contrast:
“The profoundly dishonest James Comey forgets the FBI’s corruption is now established fact”—
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/fairness-justice/the-profoundly-dishonest-james-comey-forgets-the-fbis-corruption-is-now-established-fact
“No Surprise: FBI Director Playing For Team Biden”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/no-surprise-fbi-director-playing-team-biden
H/T Powerline blog.
I would imagine that the Democrats, the FBI, the entire Security Apparatus, the Deep State and the Corrupt Media BELIEVE that they are FIGHTING for the soul of America; that they are doing what they are doing to PROTECT and SAVE the country.
(Or maybe they’re just being entirely and pathologically disengenuous. That is, maybe it’s entirely an elaborate rationalization, a sugar-coated POWER PLAY.)
In business restructuring, I worked with a lot of execs who seemed to care more about access to the capital markets than about generating revenue. If the capital markets cooperated with them, both management and lenders appeared to be willing to ignore customers to a startling degree. Sometimes it seemed that customers existed to give someone the ability to generate income projections based on wild assumptions about what customers would be likely to put up with. It’s amazingly easy to lose sight of the basic problem of offering people a product so valuable they’re willing to give up their money for it voluntarily.
This the reason that law lefties advocate that corporations maximize welfare for “stakeholders” instead of shareholders.
you might say that, I possibly couldnt
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/late-stage-legal-plunder?utm_source=post-email-
Wendy Laubach…”In business restructuring, I worked with a lot of execs who seemed to care more about access to the capital markets than about generating revenue.”
Samuel Johnson observed that the prospect of being hanged in a fortnight tends to concentrate the mind wonderfully. I don’t know what the specific situation of these companies was, but if you’re worried about running out of money to pay the bills in a few weeks, getting enough new investment to keep going would surely rise to top-of-mind.
ESG (Environmental, Social & Corporate Governance) scores are a big topic in investment. Public pension funds, so far as I can see, do take ESG scores into account when investing money, though some states have acted to forbit that. Progressive unions like SEIU are also big promoters of ESG. HR departments, though, are the Trojan horse inside the corporate gates, and most CEO’s seem to give them a free hand or support their efforts.