Most Americans don’t want businesses to take public stances on political and social issues, per a new poll, which comes amid a broader backlash against corporate “wokeism.”
There’s a staggering partisan dimension to the findings, with political party identification the strongest indicator of whether Americans think corporations should take a public stance on current affairs.
A whopping 62 percent of Democrats—compared with 17 percent of Republicans—favor companies’ taking public stands on current issues.
Even though Americans are generally opposed to businesses’ taking such stances, several issues bucked this trend. Majorities were in favor of companies’ weighing in on climate change (55 percent) and mental health (52 percent).
Lowest on the list of issues Americans feel businesses should virtue signal about are abortion (26 percent), political candidates (19 percent), and religion (15 percent).
Backlash Against ‘Woke’ Corporations
From conservative boycotts against Bud Light over the brand’s marketing partnership with transgender social media personality Dylan Mulvaney to lawsuits against Starbucks over race-based hiring policies to Target’s $13 billion stock plunge, the issue of corporate social activism has surged into the limelight in recent times.Target has faced numerous boycotts, including in 2016, when the company introduced a policy that allowed men who identify as women to use women’s bathrooms. More recently, the company caught flak for selling LGBT-themed items and clothing, including for children. This triggered conservative calls for boycotts—and a stock price meltdown.
At the beginning of May, before the company rolled out its LGBT-themed collection, Target’s market cap was about $73 billion. As of Oct. 4, the company’s market valuation sits at $49.2 billion.
‘A Lot of Unhappy Cowboys’
Venture capitalist and “Shark Tank” television personality Kevin O'Leary recently said that part of Target’s multibillion-dollar stock plunge was a “Get woke, go broke” message from investors to corporations that push progressive leftist agendas.“If you start to get too distant or too far away from the primary mandate, the market has proven itself to really, really punish you,” Mr. O'Leary told Fox News in June.
“The things we’ve done from a DE&I [diversity, equity, and inclusion] standpoint, it’s adding value,” Mr. Cornell said, referring to policies that a number of prominent conservatives have panned as leftist.
‘It’s The Whole Country’
Scott Shepard, a fellow at the free-market public policy research group National Center for Public Policy Research, told The Epoch Times in a recent interview that opposition to ESG is gaining steam in the United States.“We’re seeing something very different this time because it’s not just the conservatives, who are always interested in this sort of thing; it’s the whole country,” Mr. Shepard said of the boycott calls facing brands such as Bud Light and Target over their embrace of left-wing principles.
ESG, which started as guidelines, has now turned into heavy-handed mandates on controversial “social justice” ideologies, he said.
Mr. Shepard said that ESG initiatives could expose businesses to legal action if they can be shown to be a breach of fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.
Recently, rating agency S&P Global dropped its use of ESG scores to assess corporate borrowers amid questions over the usefulness of such metrics and amid broader backlash to woke agendas.
“Effective immediately, we are no longer publishing new ESG credit indicators in our reports or updating outstanding ESG credit indicators,” the rating agency announced in a statement obtained by The Epoch Times.
The rating agency hinted that lack of effectiveness was the rationale for dropping the ESG scoring system—which has been the subject of sharp criticism from conservatives who see it as a manifestation of leftist or even neo-Marxist agendas in corporations.
S&P Global, which is one of the world’s largest raters of corporate debt, faced calls for an investigation last year by a coalition of Republican attorneys general.
“Too many consumers and investors have been hurt by the woke ESG movement’s obsession with radical social change and willingness to ignore the law,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement in September 2022.
“We’re investigating S&P Global to find out whether they’ve engaged in the types of destructive, illegal business practices that are so pervasive in the ESG movement. If so, they will have to answer for their actions.”
That investigation has yet to conclude.
A number of other companies—including PetSmart, Chick-fil-A, and Walmart—have also faced boycott calls due to alleged support of leftist agendas.
