Just as COVID-19 stripped the veneer of competence from the face of the federal government, the last two years have also revealed that for many corporate American businesses being "woke" is more important than making money, creating products, or producing jobs.
The best and latest example of this is the Walt Disney Company or, as it should now be called, "The Wokest Place on Earth."
What started with company executives opposing a Florida bill that bans the sexual indoctrination of children, ended with company employees openly bragging about inserting LGBTQ characters, situations, and themes into shows marketed to young children.
Disney has now made it quite clear that their goal is to use their large influence of the national narrative to advance the left’s radical sexual agenda, rather than creating a product the market actually wants.
But what Disney is now realizing is that their market of American parents and grandparents have taken note, and are taking action.
A new poll from Convention of States Action and the Trafalgar Group shows that a huge majority of Americans are not happy about the Magic Kingdom going woke, and they’re willing to pick up their wallets and move to different entertainment venues.
Nearly 70% of American voters now say they are less likely to do business with Disney after they learned about the company’s push to expose young children to sexual ideas. That number includes nearly half of Democrats (48.2%) and huge majorities of Independents (72.5%) and Republicans (85.3%).
What’s more, 69.1% of American voters say they are likely to support family-friendly alternatives to Disney. Parents are actively seeking these alternatives, and companies like The Daily Wire Kids and Angel Studios are more than happy to capitalize on that massive marketplace opportunity.
In a normal world one might assume a publicly traded company like Disney would care about its bottom line. Corporate executives have a duty to their shareholders, and that includes avoiding decisions that are likely to hurt the company’s stock and damage its reputation.
Unless, of course, these executives care more about advancing a political agenda and narrative rather than serving their shareholders.
Disney isn’t the only recent example of this. Twitter’s recent refusal to consider Elon Musk’s offer also demonstrates that the left’s top priority is to maintain control of the levers of power.
Musk sent Twitter’s board of directors an offer to purchase the company for a whopping $43 billion. The offer is well above market value for a social media company that has continually struggled to provide a return of investment for its shareholders, but the board is expected to reject the offer as too low.
Why would a board of directors reject an opportunity to increase the valuation of their company? For Twitter, it’s because Musk has said publicly that he wants to make Twitter an "arena for free speech."
He would upend the company’s stranglehold on speech in this country and transform Twitter from a liberal echo chamber into a true town square.
For the left, this would be a disaster.
As poll after poll from Convention of States and Trafalgar has shown, progressives' ideas about culture, gender, and business are wildly unpopular with the American people.
If they lose control companies like Twitter, and the power of censorship it holds, they risk losing control over one of our country’s largest cultural megaphones.
That’s why both Twitter and Disney will abandon their shareholders and their employees.
They’re refusing to make good business decisions to secure their companies’ futures because, at the end of the day, controlling the levers of culture and holding the power of censorship is more important than creating a meaningful product or keeping Americans employed.
This type of behavior has been the case for a long time. The virtue signaling and censorship from the corporate world has been in vogue for at least the last 10 years.
But Americans' tolerance for this kind of corporate behavior is showing signs of shifting dramatically. As the recent polling showed, Twitter and Disney can’t write off these controversies as right-wing agitation.
If they want to ensure the survival of their companies, they’ll have to reform.
It’s unlikely the leadership of either company has the courage to stand up to the radical leftists in their midst. But one thing is for sure: their companies, and our country, would be a better place if they did.
Mark Meckler is president of Convention of States. Read Mark Meckler's Reports — More Here.
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