Walmart rolls back leftism

The cascade of consumer companies with conservative customer bases turning against trendy left-wing causes is very encouraging, but we have not seen the end of the fight. Tractor Supply, John Deere, Black & Decker, and Harley-Davidson were low-hanging fruit. They were targeted for action precisely because of the misalignment between what was coming out of headquarters and what the customers thought was so extreme. I should know. I helped select a few of the companies to focus on. Then, other companies started to move back to normal: Caterpillar, Toyota, and Ford. These were large companies with somewhat more diverse client bases. To quote Churchill, it was not the end, it was not the beginning of the end, but it might be the end of the beginning.

But then Walmart happened. The largest company in the United States, as measured by both revenues (almost $650 billion) and employees (more than 2 million worldwide), reversed course in response to citizen journalist Robby Starbuck and his social media campaigns on X.

What did Walmart change? Plenty. The company will not participate in the Human Rights Campaign’s ideologically extreme Corporate Equality Index, which has been behind some of the worst branding decisions in recent memory, such as those committed by Disney, Target, and Bud Light. To get a score of 100, a company must not only prove its loyalty to the revolution by engaging in brand seppuku but also offer “coverage” for puberty blockers for the minor children of employees. Walmart also pledged to stop selling sexually charged merchandise such as chest binders and review funding for LGBTQ pride events that involve children. On behalf of the shareholders we work with, we wrote to the companies they own, informing them that anything that mixes the transgender agenda with children is a “red line” that must not be crossed. It appears that there is enough residual recognition of the creation order that even without explicit Christian belief, corporate cultures are beginning to recognize that line.

We have been assisting financial adviser David Bahnsen, a Walmart shareholder (and a fellow contributor to WORLD Opinions who is featured each Monday on The World and Everything in It’s Moneybeat segment), who filed a proposal challenging the retailing giant for making decisions for what appear to be political, rather than business, reasons. While Walmart succeeded in blocking Bahnsen’s proposal, he came back the following year and, in coordination with Alliance Defending Freedom, challenged the company’s lack of respect for viewpoint diversity and religious freedom among employees. The company vigorously denied the problem, and we vigorously denied their denial. Despite a failure to come to any substantive agreement, Walmart did request information from ADF on what full protection for viewpoint diversity would look like. It appears that the company now realizes the problems were real, as it has also pledged to significantly modify its offensive and ideologically driven diversity training programs and refocus on belonging instead of diversity.

Bahnsen recently filed a proposal challenging the company’s membership in GARM (Global Alliance for Responsible Media), a consortium of companies that pledged (before it shut down earlier this year) to limit advertising in ways that amounted to discrimination against conservative media. This will be a great opportunity for Walmart to show that it is serious about getting back to political neutrality. A good next step would be to offer specific faith-based employee resource groups instead of the current airport interfaith chapel “to whom it may concern” faith-based groups.

The Jericho walls surrounding corporations are falling. Christians have an opportunity to be part of a conversation that we have sadly been absent from for decades. This is a once-in-a-generation chance to kick ideology out of the boardrooms and help companies get back to their proper function: the production of valuable goods and services at a profit.