It’s time for a different mouse to roar

Publicly traded corporations and fiduciary financial institutions such as pension funds are required to put the interests of investors above all other interests. This means the only way corporate managers can justify allowing politics to influence their business decisions is if they can make a case that it will help the return on investment. Typically, that is done by recasting ideological positions as “risk management,” and the focus is usually on what is called “reputational risk.”

This is the argument the left trots out in an attempt to dissolve the barrier between politics and finance. It works on a wide range of issues, with liberal activists arguing that any concession to conservative positions amounts to reputational risk for the company.

The problem is that the discussions in boardrooms, money management companies, and the proxy services that handle share-voting and investor-relations functions have focused almost exclusively on the alleged risks of backlash from the left. Companies assume that only the left will boycott, sue, or engage in political or legal retaliation. They only fear the risks they think will come from one side. Understandably, they do this because for decades now, with only one or two exceptions, only groups on the left have been showing up at board meetings to agitate over issues. These groups are small segments of America and even smaller segments of the shareholder class (which is probably more conservative than investors in general). Still, they make themselves both visible and audible. They are the mouse that roars. Whereas conservatives—especially Christian conservatives—are the silent majority, or at least the silent plurality.

But now that has changed, thanks to a series of issues, including mistreatment of employees who dissent from tech industry political consensus, one-sided banning of certain books by booksellers, deplatforming of disfavored points of view, knee-jerk denunciations of red-state actions against abortion and trans ideology, and human resources training programs that amount to reverse discrimination. And finally, with Disney’s utter capitulation to a movement that is just fine with gender-bending in kindergarten curricula, events have reached a critical mass.

Any serious approach to risk management now must account for the Middle America backlash—a predictable reaction that is now plain to see on the most-watched news shows in prime time. On Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law (or in the English to Agitprop Dictionary, the “Don’t Say Gay” law), polling shows that no major demographic category disagrees with the actual language of the law when it is presented to them. Republicans, Democrats, independents, people with LGBTQ friends, parents with kids … against, against, against, against, and against.

Middle America’s backlash is creating serious institutional and political shifts. A whole cottage industry of conservative institutions, some new, some re-tasked from the prior conservative-corporation alignment, has sprung up almost overnight. Lawmakers and red-state governors are now responding to and championing the conservative uprising against the corporate managerial class. Disney has had special status as an independent municipality for more than a half-century. When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and senior members of the state legislature object forcefully to this special status, it is clear the company has seriously miscalculated the situation. Disney can no longer tell the difference between risk management and risky mismanagement.

A subgroup of employees intimidated Disney CEO Bob Chapek into decrying the Parental Rights in Education law, but now Disney is hearing from the rest of the company and the rest of the country. An open letter from employees (anonymous, of course) calls upon Disney to leave the politics behind and be an entertainment company for everyone.

What’s next? According to Daily Wire journalist Megan Basham, a senior Disney executive concerned about the current politicization said that while boycotts are unlikely to have an effect, a “shareholder uprising” might. It’s time to look in your IRA and 401(k) to see if Disney is in there, and if it is, you should give the company the uprising it deserves. It’s time to speak to Disney in a language the company will surely understand.