Welcome to Dystopia

I was shocked last week to learn that an American right-wing activist is forcing big companies to halt their diversity and inclusion initiatives and other “woke priorities”.

According to Robby’s website, he became vocally political in 2015 because he sensed “the danger of communism rising in America”, which led him to endorse Donald Trump. There are many things I am not sure about in life, but America being under threat from communism isn’t one of them.

He has already targeted and succeeded in silencing agricultural equipment maker Deere and farming goods retailer Tractor Supply.

After being blacklisted by Robby and his 520,000 X followers and relentlessly bombarded by them, Tractor Supply agreed stop submitting data to the Human Rights Campaign, halt sponsorship of events such as Pride festivals and voting campaigns, eliminate DEI jobs, and withdraw its carbon emission targets. Deere and Harley-Davidson have since agreed to similar concessions.

Last week, Harley-Davidson and Brown-Forman became the latest US companies to drop their diversity policies and efforts.

More scared corporations will follow as they scramble to protect their bottom lines.

But at what price?

It isn’t the first time conservatives have won against corporates.

As USA Today writes: “In a nation riven by cultural issues around race, gender and family, a new wave of agitators are pressuring corporate America to back off commitments to diversity and inclusion, policies on climate change and support for the gay and transgender community.”

In 2023, conservatives waged a monthslong boycott against Bud Light after the beer brand partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney on a social-media advertisement. Mulvaney, a biological male identifying as female, is a well-known online influencer who underwent transgender medical procedures and previously interviewed President Joe Biden.

The Bud Light boycott significantly damaged the brand’s sales and the sales of other labels under the Anheuser-Busch umbrella. To win back conservative customers, Bud Light entered numerous advertising partnerships with brands and celebrities known across red America, such as the Ultimate Fighting Championship and star NFL tight end Travis Kelce.

Where will this wave of conservatism take America?

Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale depicted of a near-future dystopia in which women are forced into reproductive slavery to bear the children of the elite.

Margaret Atwood wrote in The Atlantic in 2022 “I thought I was writing fiction in The Handmaid’s Tale“.

The piece begins with: “In the early years of the 1980s, I was fooling around with a novel that explored a future in which the United States had become disunited. Part of it had turned into a theocratic dictatorship based on 17th-century New England Puritan religious tenets and jurisprudence.

“Although I eventually completed this novel and called it The Handmaid’s Tale, I stopped writing it several times, because I considered it too far-fetched. Silly me.”

From the rise of right-wing extremists to the winding back of reproductive rights and the growing #tradwife subculture that sees modern-day women choosing to embody ultra-conservative ‘gender roles’ and societal traditions from generations prior … I worry that dark days are coming for women, those who identify as LGBTQ+ and non-white racial groups in the US.

And it surprised me to learn that this man who is so intent on dismantling corporate D&I was raised by his mother and grandparents in the US after fleeing Cuba.

You’d think he would be championing diversity, not campaigning to roll back policies that aim to foster it.

Song of the day: George Michael “Freedom”