Recently, some of you may have noticed the Cracker Barrel restaurant and gift store chain changed its logo. They removed the picture of the so-called “Old Timer,” who was meant to represent the chain’s southern-style comfort food and old-fashioned country store feeling, and left that space blank to represent the pit of fiery eternal damnation loud with the shrieks of the condemned into which the chain had fallen by supporting child sex changes, drag shows for children, and racist hiring practices.
The move was supposed to help the struggling chain’s finances by ensuring that no conservative customer entered one of their venues ever again. Those alienated customers would be replaced by large numbers of imaginary progressives just waiting for an old-fashioned, down-home, southern-style restaurant catering to pedophilia-adjacent homosexuals with a hankering for crunchy fried chicken.
But Right-wing activists loudly protested the logo change, and when it turned out the new imaginary customers were paying for their imaginary meals with imaginary money, Cracker Barrel was forced to replace the Old Timer in the empty space, in the hopes they could keep their usual customers and avoid the eternal shriek-filled pit of sin-tortured souls the empty space represented.
Now, at this point, the flaming shriek-filled pit of sin-tortured souls known as the American news media, began to express their opinions, which were all the same opinion, because all the American news media’s opinions are decanted from a single brain, which is kept on a lightning-lashed altar in the fog-shrouded cave-dwelling of Chernabog, who was the demon from Bald Mountain in Disney’s Fantasia, before he left to take a job in Disney’s animation department.
The opinion of the news media was that conservatives were oh-so-very silly to make such a big fuss over a meaningless logo change at a failing chain restaurant, and how far, oh how very far, American culture had fallen from those golden days when real intellectuals like Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley exchanged sparkling ideas by screaming slurs and threatening to punch each other in the face, while the Left swarmed over our institutions like locusts, devouring everything from Christianity to the First Amendment. Just how stupid could these Fox-News-Watching Neanderthals be that they would waste their energies trying to cancel an innocent restaurant that was simply trying to take their customers’ money to fund actions their customers found contemptible?
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show">WATCH: The Andrew Klavan Show</a></h3>
And I thought to myself: Oh, American news media, how right you are! Who cares about these little meaningless changes in the culture? In fact, just for fun, I would like to suggest a few meaningless cultural changes of my own.
For instance, how about conservatives buy the rights to the gay situation comedy “Will and Grace” and reboot the show, but this time, Will embraces Catholicism, and hilarity ensues as gay Will struggles with his physical desires in order to live a life in keeping with his faith. I’m sure the elite news media wouldn’t mind a meaningless little culture change like that one tiny bit.
What about color-blind casting? The current rules are, it’s okay to have Jesus Christ portrayed by a black woman, but it’s very bad to have a deaf character portrayed by an actor who can hear. So how about, as a change of pace, we have Jesus Christ portrayed by a Jewish actor who’s deaf, and when the left says, “Hey, he’s supposed to be a black woman,” the actor can say, “What? I couldn’t hear you! I’m deaf!” I’m sure the media wouldn’t complain about that at all.
Or, I know. Let’s reboot the hit 1970’s slavery drama “Roots,” only in this version, instead of a white man heading into the African interior to capture slaves, the white slaver just waits in his ship like in real life until the black Africans bring their black slaves to him so he can take them to a country where hundreds of thousands of white men will ultimately die to free them, about fifty years before white imperialists force their African colonies to free their slaves as well. I’m sure the news media would love that fresh, original take on an old favorite. 
In fact, just for giggles, let’s change all the Left’s favorite franchises so that they represent something the Left truly despises: the American people.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Klavan is the bestselling author of numerous books, including the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fifth installment, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/After-That-Cameron-Winter-Mysteries/dp/1613166869/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3EGZUC370LG46&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y_NI0mDOKeowShheDQTVx5NH-fAeimJoCD56_T0Acpl8C0mup7uJf-nGGSRLEItaaekoDnvS2vWLMa4Zd2UBXQ8Y-g-P502jOWz-Y8IX3ZQsdlO7WMLrg1xIhNoKmjCorSWUR4C2l_RbiZ7apJ1MfPzGOrrEf7AdAXX6xwnJRVP_XqUfWuMuVthTWscaU3P4vgmS86-96n-721enHfX12CFQWTajqFbVnrsDkexfUf4.6_gTH6h1Bb9Pn375QdF_VAVZSayDvjQBBKGXE-MTiFo&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=klavan&amp;qid=1754049918&amp;sprefix=%2Caps%2C80&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">After That, The Dark,</a> is now available for Pre-Order. Follow him on X: <a href="https://x.com/andrewklavan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@andrewklavan</a>
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Cracker Barrel Redesigns Its Logo

The Easy Way To Ensure No Conservative Will Ever Visit Your Store

Andrew Klavan

Corporations

Cracker Barrel

Humor

Leftists

Legacy Media

Restaurant

Satire

Woke Culture

As someone who grew up going to Cracker Barrel on road trips, I, along with millions of Americans, heaved a sigh of relief when I heard the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cracker-barrel-thought-the-logo-u-turn-would-be-enough-it-wasnt?author=Virginia+Kruta&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Cracker+Barrel+Thought+The+Logo+U-Turn+Would+Be+Enough.+It+Wasn%E2%80%99t.">old logo</a> would remain.
But while we won’t have to endure the Soviet-style brutalist-inspired logo redesign, the new minimalist décor and proposed architectural plans for new stores are still on the menu.
If you aren’t familiar, these architectural plans look suspiciously like those at new Taco Bells (where the current Cracker Barrel CEO was before) — and they’re indistinguishable from those of a small industrial warehouse.
This is yet another example of the push for a Woke Generica from those trying to erase familiar symbols of American art and architecture. But their movement targets more than just symbols — it’s a movement against the entire pioneering and entrepreneurial spirit that defined and built America.
American history is filled with people seeking to fill in the blank edges of the map and build the impossible. For centuries, we’ve been a nation that stood out for our accomplishments. Now, though, we have a corporate culture that overwhelmingly views blending into the crowd as an accomplishment.
One of our greatest entrepreneurs, Henry Ford, warned of this kind of latent unimaginative culture when he said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” There’s a reason it’s cliché to say that innovators and entrepreneurs expand our horizons.
The most groundbreaking and quality-of-life-uplifting innovations — whether an invention such as the computer, or a business model such as Amazon’s logistical empire — almost always stem from the kind of pioneering risk-taking that is so core to the American identity.
But the new Cracker Barrel redesign is a case study in a futile attempt to simply make a faster horse. And while blandly blending into the background can feel safe, it’s a clear road to stagnation.
In part, what we are seeing is a business world losing perspective with what they actually sell. Only part of a product is its material, functional, form. Whether you call it the vibe, style, or aesthetic, part of the service that people want is what inspires the mind and the soul.
One of the many failings of Eastern European communist societies was their focus on the tangible practicality of things. It was an overtly Marxist pursuit, but it was also — inadvertently — a movement focused on draining artistry out of the ordinary experiences of life and on assaulting our sense of rootedness and belonging.
The man they tried so casually to take off the Cracker Barrel logo isn’t just a generic old man. He’s Uncle Herschel — the real-life uncle of Cracker Barrel founder Dan Evins. He’s also a kind and friendly face, welcoming you into not just the eatery, but the environment that is a Cracker Barrel &#8220;Old Country Store.&#8221;
That environment conjures the spirit of the pioneering West and the ideal of a rural farming community’s gathering place and grocery supplier — featuring a favorite of mine, a wall of a dozen or so unique types of root beer.
But more importantly, that environment reminds us of a crucial and unique piece of our shared national spirit and identity.
Steve Jobs gave warnings about just this sort of thing — about the danger of a business replacing the people who created the product with people focused simply on marketing it without a deep respect for the richness of the product or brand.
Sadly, Cracker Barrel is only the latest in what is now a long line of businesses that have abandoned their purpose and history.
The most stunning example is, perhaps, the Greek tragedy that Disney has turned into — an existence that, over the last 10 years, has cost them the respect of most of their long-time fanbase and 20% of their inflation-adjusted market cap.
The Disney story presents a set of roadmaps that would be useful for Cracker Barrel and, indeed, the broader corporate world today to study.
After the sudden death of Walt Disney in 1966, the company largely lost its sense of soul and purpose and languished for 18 years.
When Michael Eisner came in as CEO in 1984, though, he oversaw the next 15 years of what is now called the Disney Renaissance, featuring “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Lion King,” cruise lines, overseas theme-park expansions and many of the things that we now think of as the height of Disney art and culture.
Disney’s stock soared more than twenty-fold in inflation-adjusted terms during this period. But this is more than a simple business success story.
On day one, Eisner went to visit the Disney Imagineers — the people who knew Walt and still embodied the spirit of his vision.
Eisner ignored pressure to pursue what was seen as standard and safe — the pressure to radically depart Disney from its heritage. Instead, he sought to re-embrace that heritage and to rebuild the company in its truly unique style. That made all the difference.
Today, Disney’s current woke stagnation is the product of the last generation or so of abandoning those principles and following the same crowd that brought Cracker Barrel to take the barrel, and Uncle Herschel, off the logo.
Will we sheepishly go down the road of the brutalist logo and woke live action remakes? Or will we go the way of the Disney Renaissance — and reclaim the way of the rugged American pioneer and entrepreneurial innovator?
For now, the market has spoken and saved Cracker Barrel’s logo. But the question remains — and the nation as a whole must answer.
* * *
Richard Stern is Acting Director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation and Director of its Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Trump Says Cracker Barrel Should Restore Old Logo After Backlash

From Uncle Herschel To Mickey Mouse: Cracker Barrel’s Disney Dilemma

Disney

Heritage Foundation

Monopolies have been rigging the system for decades. They cozy up to Washington, throw cash around, hire armies of lobbyists, and manipulate rules so that everyday Americans always lose.
Thankfully, President Trump isn’t playing by their rules. He’s standing up for Main Street, not corporate boardrooms.
We first saw this with Big Tech. Mark Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/technology/mark-zuckerberg-trump-meta-antitrust.html">thought</a> he could cut a favorable deal to get Facebook off the hook, possibly even counting on Trump to back him. Instead, the Trump administration <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/facebook-privacy-practices-focus-8-billion-trial-targeting-zuckerberg-2025-07-16/">allowed</a> the case to go to trial, and Zuckerberg found himself sweating it out on the witness stand. 
Google attempted a similar stunt, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/21/google-argues-doj-breakup-could-hurt-us-economy-in-battle-with-china.html">claiming</a> national security would be at risk if it faced a breakup. Trump’s DOJ wasn’t buying it. 
 
“You know what is dangerous?” Antitrust chief Gail Slater <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/04/30/business/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-testifies-extraordinary-doj-remedies-would-cause-many-unintended-consequences/">asked</a> outside the courthouse. “The threat Google presents to our freedom of speech, to our freedom of thought, to free American digital markets.” That case has now <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2025/08/20/google-will-soon-learn-its-fate-as-judge-prepares-to-reveal-antitrust-remedies/">reached</a> the remedies stage, and for the first time since AT&amp;T in the 1980s, we could see a Big Tech monopoly actually broken apart. That’s how monopolies should be treated.
Now Ticketmaster is running the same playbook. 
Controlling <a href="https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/did-ticketmasters-market-dominance-fuel-the-chaos-for-swifties">80% of the market</a>, the ticket marketplace is infamous for outrageous fees and predatory practices, such as charging junk fees and allowing scalping bots to buy up most of its inventory, leaving regular fans at the mercy of price gougers. Yet now the monopoly wants Trump to think it’s the solution, not the problem. 
Ticketmaster’s owner, Live Nation, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5311464-ric-grenell-live-nation-board-trump-doj-ticketmaster-antitrust/">added</a> a MAGA-friendly face to its board and is now floating “reform” ideas, like capping resale prices. Such caps would <a href="https://www.whiskeyriff.com/2025/07/09/live-nation-asks-the-trump-administration-to-cap-ticket-resale-prices-which-would-conveniently-put-their-competition-out-of-business/">bankrupt</a> almost all of Ticketmaster’s rivals, leaving the company even more dominant while pretending to “fix” the market.
It’s a double scam: they make the mess, then turn around and sell the “solution” as regulation.
It’s like an arsonist showing up with a bucket of water after lighting the fire.
Fortunately, the Trump administration is not paying any attention to Ticketmaster’s desperate attempt to protect itself from the White House’s wrath. It is already <a href="https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2025/03/14/329490.htm">continuing</a> the antitrust suit against Ticketmaster, and a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-will-end-price-gouging-by-middlemen-in-the-entertainment-industry/">ticketing reform plan</a> set to drop in September could put the company’s “business as usual” to an end.
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Big Tech and Ticketmaster aren’t alone.
In June, the Trump administration hit Mexican bank CIBanco with the <a href="https://www.foley.com/insights/publications/2025/07/fincen-new-authority-targeting-mexico-based-financial-institutions-cartel/">toughest sanctions possible</a>, accusing it of aiding the fentanyl trade. A few weeks later, CIBanco — never before a client of Washington lobbyists — <a href="https://lda.senate.gov/filings/public/filing/ab337cdd-495b-4498-a1f9-4f3b0ec83631/print/">hired</a> the MAGA-connected Rubin, Turnbull &amp; Associates. The sanctions haven’t moved, and Trump has stood firm.
Amazon has also tried its usual political maneuvering on the president. When Trump won the White House, executives <a href="https://lda.senate.gov/filings/public/filing/b22dc7d6-7900-40e4-9f3f-985bbbb32579/print/">hired</a> Brian Ballard — Trump’s former lawyer and Florida finance director — to lobby on Amazon’s behalf. They even contributed <a href="https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/286/201704180300150286/201704180300150286.pdf">over $50,000</a> to the president’s inauguration. Did it work? No. Trump didn’t blink, and Amazon lost its effort to dodge federal antitrust charges.
Hardworking Americans are tired of being taken advantage of. Insider games, where a board seat or a lobbyist equals immunity, have gone on for too long. Trump sees it, and he’s the one president actually saying “No” loud enough for all of us to hear.
Trump is different from most politicians. He doesn’t feel he owes these corporations anything, and he isn’t inclined to give them a free pass. His administration is pushing back against any monopoly that harms consumers or breaks the law.
The bottom line? Corporate America needs to clean up its act or face the consequences. Because the Trump administration isn’t standing up for special interests, it’s standing up for everyday Americans like you and me.
* * *
Haley Kennington (@LadyKennington) is an investigative journalist and conservative commentator. She served as the Research Director &amp; Story Editor for The Daily Wire’s “2020:The Plot Against the President” and the Research/Archive Editor for “What Is a Woman?“
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Donald Trump

In Trump’s White House, It’s Main Street Over Monopolies

Big Pharma

Big Tech

President Trump

Washington D.C.

Cracker Barrel is under fire.
What did they do? They changed their logo.
I thought their logo used to be charming. It showed a middle-aged white farmer sitting on a chair, leaning against a barrel with a logo that said “Cracker Barrel: Old Country Store.”
It didn&#8217;t look generic. Their new logo now shows the same font and letters, but they got rid of the man on the chair leaning on the barrel and the old country store. All that’s left is just the Cracker Barrel logo inside a yellow hexagonal background.
It looks like you&#8217;re driving into a Carl&#8217;s Jr.
I would hazard a guess that the shape is supposed to be in the shape of a sideways barrel, but you have to really think about it to get that far.
<div id="attachment_963781" style="width: 825px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-963781" class="size-large wp-image-963781" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-21-Aug-2025-03-36-PM-8058-815x576.jpg" alt="Courtesy: Cracker Barrel" width="815" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-21-Aug-2025-03-36-PM-8058-815x576.jpg 815w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-21-Aug-2025-03-36-PM-8058-300x212.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-21-Aug-2025-03-36-PM-8058-768x543.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-21-Aug-2025-03-36-PM-8058-1536x1086.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-21-Aug-2025-03-36-PM-8058-2048x1448.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 815px) 100vw, 815px" />Courtesy: Cracker Barrel</div>
It&#8217;s a very bad move.
It’s getting rid of historic intellectual property in favor of something absolutely and ridiculously generic.
When it first opened in 1969, Cracker Barrel had a logo with just text. In 1977, it updated its logo to have the man resting next to the barrel. The restaurant says the new logo is now rooted even more closely to the iconic barrel, shape, and wordmark that started it all. It also noted that farm-fresh scrambled eggs and buttermilk biscuits were the inspiration behind the color palette in the new campaign.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2264-democratic-party-bleeding-voters?elementPosition=4&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino tried to explain why they mutilated the logo this way, saying, “Honestly, the feedback&#8217;s been overwhelmingly positive that people like what we&#8217;re doing. I&#8217;ll give you another sound bite. I actually happened to be in Orlando last week with all of our managers. We bring them together once every other year and the number one question that I got asked was, ‘How can I get a remodel? When can I get a remodel? How do I get on the list?” Because the feedback and the buzz is so good, not only from our customers, but from our team members. They want to work in a wonderful restaurant. So we&#8217;re doing everything for our guests and our team members.”
This is very reminiscent of when we used to buy Aunt Jemima’s syrup. During the great racial reckoning of 2020, they decided they had to redo the entire logo and they changed it to Pearl Milling Company. That was bizarre, because the actual story of the woman who was Aunt Jemima is fascinating.
<div id="attachment_963793" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-963793" class="size-large wp-image-963793" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-1222989031-768x576.jpg" alt="26 June 2020, US, New York: Syrup bottles from &quot;Aunt Jemima&quot; are in a supermarket. US food giant Pepsi is giving its 130-year-old &quot;Aunt Jemima&quot; brand a new look. The mascot so far: a black woman as a friendly servant. There is to be a new start this year. (to dpa-Korr &quot;Popstars, Uncle Ben's and Co.: Racism debate leads to rethinking&quot;) Photo: Benno Schwinghammer/dpa (Photo by Benno Schwinghammer/picture alliance via Getty Images)" width="768" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-1222989031-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-1222989031-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-1222989031.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" />Benno Schwinghammer/picture alliance via Getty Images</div>
Her name was Nancy Green, and according to ABC News, “Green was born into slavery in Montgomery County, Kentucky. After the Civil War, she moved to a deeply divided Chicago, becoming a strong voice at Olivet Baptist Church, the city’s oldest black congregation.”
<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/untold-story-real-aunt-jemima-fight-preserve-legacy/story?id=72293603">ABC News</a> found a descendant of hers who said, “She was the trusted face. Back then, you know, anybody who would look at an African American woman cooking, they knew that they can trust her cooking, that she could cook.” He said of the decision to remove her picture, “I was taken aback. I was really shocked. I knew people didn&#8217;t realize that those were real people and, you know, to phase them out would kind of erase their history.”
But somehow this was supposed to make the country better.
I&#8217;m not sure what Cracker Barrel is doing here. It doesn&#8217;t make a lot of sense. Cracker Barrel does have many DEI initiatives. If you take a look at their corporate website, they have the LGBTQ+- sign; they have a diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging department.
In other words, they do all of the usual left-wing tropes. They&#8217;re a generic New York-based kind of company.
I would have guessed that when they lost that local flavor, they would lose some sales as well.
Sure enough, on Thursday, CBS News <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cracker-barrel-cbrl-stock-down-200-million-loss-new-logo-change/">reported</a>, “Cracker Barrel shed almost $200 million in market value after its stock plunged Thursday following the release of a new logo. &#8230; Shares of Cracker Barrel fell as much as $8.74, or almost 15%, in Thursday trading, shaving as much as $194.6 million from the company&#8217;s market value. The stock regained some ground in early afternoon trading, with shares down $8.19, or 13.9%, to $50.84.”
It is sad that so much of the intellectual property of America is getting more and more generic. I remember when McDonald&#8217;s had the big golden arches outside, and now they&#8217;ve decided to dump them in many places and instead use a generic logo.
It’s making the culture deeply impersonal and cold.
And I don’t like it.

Cracker Barrel: Now With 100% Less Grandpa

Ben Shapiro

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

restaurants

As we pass the halfway point of the 2020s, it’s safe to say we’ve all had front row seats to what many people have described as the vibe shift. You don’t really have to pay attention to business to understand that something is changing in corporate America. You don’t have to be looking at stocks every day to realize that the balance of power is shifting away from the heights of wokeness we saw at the beginning of the 2020s. President Trump’s latest executive <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/08/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-guarantees-fair-banking-for-all-americans/">order</a>, prohibiting politicized debanking, is creating massive positive waves for conservatives concerned about losing access to their finances — and investors who don’t want the banks they invest in playing politics. This comes on the heels of other executive orders targeted at biased AI <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/preventing-woke-ai-in-the-federal-government/">programs</a> and divisive, discriminatory <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/">DEI policies</a>.
These big steps are the results of top-down exercises in executive power. And a frequent criticism I hear, as someone whose job it is to pay attention to business, is that Trump’s executive orders will just create a facade of non-wokeness, under which companies will resume their previous biased policies. As it happens, answering that criticism is a major part of my work in the world of corporate engagement. Because the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-year-the-dei-tide-turned?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=10&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=The+Year+The+DEI+Tide+Turned">pushback</a> against ESG, DEI, &amp; corporate wokeness isn’t just coming from the White House. It’s coming from ordinary investors all across this country who want the businesses they invest in focusing on… well, business.
Let’s take debanking as an example. Months before Trump’s debanking executive order came down, banks like <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/major-win-jpmorgan-chase-ends-political-debanking?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Major+Win%3A+JPMorgan+Chase+Ends+Political+Debanking">JPMorgan Chase</a> &amp; <a href="https://x.com/IsaacWillour/status/1929918865842012351">Citigroup</a> adopted explicit guarantees: no more debanking based on clients’ political beliefs or affiliations. These banks weren’t just anticipating the regulatory and political shift coming from Washington — they were hearing from shareholders. Why? Because when businesses play politics, they don’t just incur the wrath of Republican politicians. These gambles with brand value and deviations from the core business model hurt ordinary Americans, who rightly expect Citigroup to create value for their kids’ college fund instead of opining on gun control through their lending policies.
When JPMorgan Chase debanked Ambassador Sam Brownback, investors took notice. And the investors I work with aren’t the type to sit back and take it. Shareholders like <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/my-bid-to-make-jpmorgan-less-woke-progressive-discrimination-conservatives-christians-shareholders-sec-banking-finances-583c7999?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAhg8WubEGKB7cvLlardDDcKkGeJqpUicqcbM1xoLBHMGeBHqpP1w-ZC4shMtQk%3D&amp;gaa_ts=68957d1d&amp;gaa_sig=hpzyOTrRxsQ-AO0cLmG4VpK0q2-FpzuLTXkXA0T73nZM0Iu73898-9shhfsDz68MpAEbFs9tDXU_DvlMbfl-Fw%3D%3D">David Bahnsen</a> and other ordinary <a href="https://investor.bankofamerica.com/regulatory-and-other-filings/all-sec-filings/content/0001193125-24-064529/d529855ddef14a1.pdf">investors</a> were attending annual meetings and putting pressure on these companies from the inside for years, not to be right-wing or give special privileges to conservatives, but to play it neutral: serve everyone, because everyone needs banks. And because banks have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders, there have been real arguments occurring between investors and company reps for years on the debanking issue. Add to this pressure from red state fiduciaries cutting ties with activist banks (turns out, pro-energy states don’t take kindly to banks demonizing the energy industry), and the supercharging effect of an executive order, and you start to see how corporate America is slowly shifting back towards normalcy. And that’s just the debanking issue.
If you had to sum up why the backlash to corporate wokeness is working in one sentence, try this one: the pro-sanity business ecosystem has become too big to ignore, and too committed to fail. Think about it as a coalition. One part is ordinary investors and institutions who invest for return — these aren’t professional activists, a dynamic that companies are only recently having to get used to. Another part is financial professionals, another part are legal advocates like Alliance Defending Freedom, working to make sure companies can’t just ignore their own shareholders (because they try — often). Another part is friendly journalists and X personalities like Robby Starbuck, putting millions of eyes on this issue. Another part is the countless advocacy groups providing the research &amp; data that fuel our ability to talk to these companies, such as Consumers’ Research and the 1792 Exchange. Effective corporate engagement happens when all these forces align on a single aim: getting companies out of politics &amp; back to business. 
And we’re seeing real results on a whole host of issues. Beyond the debanking issue, we’re seeing companies <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/08/us-banks-quit-net-zero-alliance-before-trump-inauguration">ditch</a> anti-energy commitments in droves (turns out, net zero becomes a fantasy the minute you look at the energy demands of the real world.) We’re seeing companies commit to treating their religious employees with the same respect &amp; privileges afforded to non-religious ones, including through workplace affinity groups and inclusion in charity matching programs. We’re seeing companies like <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/pepsico-puts-out-viewpoint-neutral-media-buying-content-policy-website">PepsiCo</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ibm-rolls-back-dei-commits-to-political-neutrality?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=IBM+Rolls+Back+DEI%2C+Commits+To+Political+Neutrality">IBM</a> commit to not using their ad policies to discriminate against conservative news outlets like the Daily Wire. And we have good reason to believe that, as corporate engagement increases, more wins are coming.
So, what about that façade of nonwokeness? Aren’t companies just going to lie? As it happens, vigilance from actual investors is a fantastic way to safeguard against that. People generally have the biggest incentive to do something when it hurts to not do it. So, who has the biggest incentive to make sure businesses aren’t playing politics? The people who own the business: shareholders. The investors we represent have a clear incentive to be in the details — because the problem of corporate wokeness isn’t just a PR or branding issue. It’s an issue that affects the bottom line Americans depend on.
The vibe shift we’re seeing goes far beyond Washington, even though Washington matters. What’s happening in America, in real time, is conservative investors and institutions waking up and realizing that they’ve been leaving their financial influence on the table. And we truly have no blueprint for how much winning is possible when that influence is brought to bear. So, from Washington, to the halls of conservative institutions, to the ordinary mom-and-pop investors sitting at their kitchen table in West Texas — here’s to winning. The best is yet to come.
* * *
Isaac Willour is an award-winning journalist focusing on race, culture, and American conservatism, as well as a corporate relations analyst at Bowyer Research. His work has been featured at outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Opinion, C-SPAN, and The Daily Wire. He is a member of the Young Voices contributor program and can be found on X <a href="https://twitter.com/IsaacWillour" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@IsaacWillour</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Flag and Wall street sign

Why The Pro-Sanity Coalition Is Winning Again In Corporate America

Banks

Business

debanking

JP Morgan

Stock Market

Wall Street

Part of my job as a corporate engagement strategist is to read what’s on corporate ballots at American public companies. Reading these agendas reveals a stunning amount of blatantly anti-business proposals from corporate activist groups, from pushing Lockheed Martin to divest from Israel to pressuring Starbucks to make oat milk free to fight racism (yes, that’s real). But the other day, I came across perhaps one of the worst examples of corporate activism that’s not only anti-business, but arguably directly at odds with values of the organization pushing the proposal. The proposal? Supporting employee access to abortion. The proponent? The largest Presbyterian denomination in America.
The Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (PCUSA) is one of the biggest Presbyterian denominations in America, with more than a million members in its ranks despite <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/pcusa-may-drop-below-1-million-member-mark-by-end-of-2025-report.html">losing</a> almost 50,000 members in 2024 alone. Earlier this year, the denomination shuttered its missionary program after almost two centuries, citing declining giving and church membership. But, while the international mission field may be a lost cause for PCUSA, financial struggles haven’t stopped them from pursuing other goals like making sure American employees can kill their unborn children. The PCUSA recently sponsored a <a href="https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001646972/7d526ba6-e36b-41a6-bd6a-9c4833529da6.pdf">shareholder proposal</a> for supermarket chain Albertsons, urging the company to report on the effects of state-level restrictions on abortion in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade. Even though the proposal came from an organization representing thousands of Christians, it’s a masterclass in pro-abortion virtue signaling. “[Employees] who cannot access abortion when needed are three times more likely to leave the workforce, and four times as likely to slip into poverty.” Conveniently, the stats on unborn children go unmentioned.
PCUSA’s demands are clear: “support abortion, or you’re not acting in the best interests of your shareholders or employees. By the way, we’re a church.” PCUSA’s slide into backwards orthodoxy, rejecting virtually every tenet of the historic Christian faith, is <a href="https://www.hrc.org/resources/stances-of-faiths-on-lgbt-issues-presbyterian-church-usa">well-documented</a>. But from a business perspective, there is an important question to ask: Is supporting abortion access a fiduciary responsibility of publicly traded companies? In my view, no. And there are at least two reasons. 
First, opining on divisive issues from abortion to ‘gender-affirming care’ is rapidly becoming the reddest of flags to both American consumers and businesses seeking to maintain their bottom line. All one needs to do is look at Target, Bud Light, &amp; Disney to see how politicized business becomes bad business. 
Second (and it’s a wonder we don’t talk about this more), companies that support abortion are literally supporting the killing of future customers. As my firm Bowyer Research wrote in a <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1996368/000109690625001103/bowy_px14a6g.htm">recent SEC filing</a>, urging shareholders to vote against the PCUSA’s proposal, “For a company like Albertsons, whose long-term success depends on serving growing families and communities, policies that suppress birth rates may ultimately shrink its future customer base.”
That takes us to another common pro-abortion talking point in corporate America: that businesses operating in pro-life states are going to see <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/no-people-are-not-fleeing-states-with-strong-pro-life-laws/">worker shortages</a>. That’s by no means a definitive statement. Albertsons is headquartered in Boise, Idaho. Through a pro-abortion lens, companies in red states should be deeply concerned about the exodus of workers leaving for pro-abortion states. The reality? Idaho’s one of the <a href="https://boisedev.com/news/2025/01/27/idaho-2-million/">fastest-growing states</a> in America, with many of those new residents coming from pro-abortion states such as California, Oregon, and Washington. It’s almost as if population growth is more complicated than merely looking at a state’s abortion stance — if anything, pro-life Idaho seems to be winning the population growth war. It’s another reason that it simply makes no sense for a company like Albertsons to support abortion to appease corporate activists — especially when those activists come from the church.
This isn’t Christian corporate engagement, no matter what the Denethor-esque stewards of the PCUSA may tell you. But it is instructive as to how Christian organizations drift Left. While the PCUSA may be an infamously liberal denomination, that doesn’t mean that abortion advocacy is what many of its tithing church members, many of whom are conservative, and pensioned clergy want. You may be the most conservative PCUSA <a href="https://x.com/IsaacWillour/status/1940207329770897890">churchgoer</a> alive but they can still use your tithes to lobby for abortion.
This should be a wakeup call for all Christians on just how bad things are getting in mainline denominations. If you’re part of a church or Christian ministry, it’s time to get answers about who’s stewarding your finances and <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/06/13/the-results-of-christian-mutual-proxy-voting-analysis-leave-significant-room-for-improvement/">what they’re doing</a> — how are “you” voting on these sorts of proposals? Christian organizations have fallen asleep at the wheel when it comes to their finances reflecting their faith.
What can be done to remedy this particular situation? A good place to start is making sure that your church is never in the arena advocating for the killing of unborn children. And right now, the PCUSA’s doing just that.
* * *
Isaac Willour is an award-winning journalist focusing on race, culture, and American conservatism, as well as a corporate relations analyst at Bowyer Research. His work has been featured at outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Opinion, C-SPAN, and The Daily Wire. He is a member of the Young Voices contributor program and can be found on X <a href="https://twitter.com/IsaacWillour" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@IsaacWillour</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Blurry background speaker on conference stage with projector in America

A Major Church Just Advocated For Abortion At A Shareholder Meeting

Abortion

Church

Opinion

When President Trump says other countries are “ripping us off,” he is referring to more than trade or currency manipulation. He is also talking about predatory investors overseas — foreign-based hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds — that have devoted staggering amounts of money to bankroll frivolous lawsuits in American courts. Why? Their aim is to pocket a significant portion of any verdict or settlement. If successful, these litigation gamblers not only secure a sizable return on their investment, they also walk away without having to pay any taxes.
It is unfair to American companies, consumers, and taxpayers. 
There is, however, a real opportunity to stop this litigation abuse through the budget negotiations currently underway in Congress. Foreign investors are using our U.S. court systems to punish American companies and citizens while enriching themselves. Since litigation is so costly, risky, and time consuming, many companies often agree to settle even when the case lacks real merit, because the risk of going to trial is simply too high.
The lawsuit funding landscape has become akin to the wild west. Foreign investors take advantage of loopholes to avoid paying taxes on their judgments or settlements even if the plaintiffs they are bankrolling are required to pay taxes. One reason this practice is not better known is very few jurisdictions require investors to disclose their involvement in cases or the terms of their agreements.
Allowing foreign-based investors to operate in the shadows, cloaked in anonymity, raises a host of legal, ethical, and even national security concerns. How are judges to know if they need to recuse themselves if they do not have access to all the facts? Who are the attorneys acting on behalf of the plaintiffs or the investors? Is the often-confidential information obtained during the discovery process about American citizens and companies at risk of being turned over to foreign funders, some of whom may hold views antithetical to our national interests? What are the real motivations for these lawsuits? Is it about justice or achieving other geopolitical goals?
Clearly, this practice is cloaked in secrecy. And while there is much the American people still do not know, they know enough to understand it’s both unfair and a serious threat. At least $15 billion is devoted to this dubious practice as of today. We also know Russian oligarchs have <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation-finance/putins-billionaires-sidestep-sanctions-by-financing-lawsuits">dodged sanctions</a> by investing in lawsuits in American courts and investors based in China have <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/china-firm-funds-us-lawsuits-amid-push-to-disclose-foreign-ties">used</a> litigation financing arrangements to target tech companies.
The good news? There is a remedy at the ready.
Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Congressman Kevin Hern (R-OK) introduced the <a href="https://www.tillis.senate.gov/services/files/94578FC8-8F83-48AB-9932-7D61465A7FFF">Tackling Predatory Litigation Funding Act</a>, a bill which cracks down on the misuse and abuse of our courts by ending investors’ preferential tax treatment and creating much-needed deterrence. This legislation will, at a minimum, make investors think twice before targeting a successful American company with a frivolous claim.
The Tillis-Hern Tackling Predatory Litigation Funding Act takes the “for sale” sign off of American courthouses and amends the tax code to impose a new “tax on income from litigation which is received by third-party entities that provided financing for such litigation.”
Income from lawsuits is just that – income; just as American taxpayers have to pay taxes on the money they make, so too should foreign investors who use our court systems as a casino.
President Trump’s Reconciliation Bill passed the House last month and now awaits consideration in the Senate. While it contains a permanent extension of the Trump tax cuts, No Tax on Tips, and billions for immigration enforcement – the Senate also has a chance to fix the equity and tax issues associated with predatory foreign litigation investing. In addition, the Tillis-Hern Tackling Predatory Litigation Funding Act would crack down on foreign intrusions in our courts, safeguard national security interests, and generate new tax revenues to fund other commonsensical American priorities.
This is an ideal time and a good legislative vehicle to stop foreign investors from using U.S. courts to harm and punish American taxpayers, and this Reconciliation Bill can accomplish just that.
* * *
Trey Gowdy represented South Carolina’s 4th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 until 2019.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/gift/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=wisepops&amp;utm_campaign=dad&amp;utm_content=fathersdaygiftpopups">Gift Dad an All Access Membership. Use code DAD40 at checkout to save 40%!</a>

USTR Greer Slated To Defend Trump Tariffs To Congress

Time To Stop Predatory Foreign Investors

Congress

finance

Foreign Policy

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Home Depot, Netflix, and Delta Airlines are just some of the companies being warned to cut ties with a left-wing program that pushes companies to cover sex change procedures for employees, a letter from a former attorney general obtained by The Daily Wire reveals.
The <a href="https://1792exchange.com/">1792 Exchange</a>, which fights the diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda in corporate America, is urging 92 companies to end their participation in the Corporate Equality Index, a rubric used by the far-left Human Rights Campaign (HRC) to grade companies’ adherence to left-wing gender ideology.
The Corporate Equality Index, the 1792 Exchange says, “functions as a social credit scoring system, promoting partisan initiatives that impede sound corporate governance” and even “pressures companies to adopt unlawful policies that only sow division.”
“You should cease participation in this index immediately,” the letter charges.
The 1792 Exchange is run by former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who told The Daily Wire that some companies simply don’t understand just how radical the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index really is.
“Unfortunately, many companies have no idea what they’re actually signing up for when they participate in the HRC’s survey. This should be a wake-up call,” Cameron told The Daily Wire. “As we move forward with America’s renewal, 1792 Exchange urges every responsible HR leader to reconsider their involvement with HRC and refocus on merit, excellence, and integrity in the workplace.”
Other notable companies that received the letter include Costco, Cracker Barrel, Lowe&#8217;s, Albertson’s, Autozone, and Rite Aid.
In order to receive a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-left-wing-activists-are-trying-to-save-corporate-wokeness">perfect score</a> on the Corporate Equality Index, companies in previous years had to offer healthcare coverage for so-called “medically necessary” transgender hormone replacement therapy, sex change operations, and puberty blockers for youth, while also establishing supplier diversity pipelines focused on LGBTQ+ suppliers.
Several companies, including Walmart, McDonald’s, and Tractor Supply, have <a href="https://1792exchange.com/dei-tracker/">ended their participation</a> in the Corporate Equality Index in recent years. Ford Motor Company similarly backed out of the left-wing organization’s scoring system, <a href="https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1828820035118518737">announcing in a memo</a> last year that it would “stop participating in external culture surveys such as the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.”
Now, Cameron is calling on the 92 corporations addressed in his letter to follow suit.
“As you prepare for the upcoming 2026 CEI survey, I encourage you to carefully consider the risks and consequences of continued participation,” Cameron writes before offering them assistance in decoupling from the far-left organization. “We are here to support you&#8230;your team of experienced professionals offers confidential, pro bono assistance to help you align your company’s policies with both business success and legal prudence.”
“Let’s ensure that workplaces remain welcoming, productive, and focused on excellence,” Cameron’s letter concludes. “Withdrawing participation in the CEI represents a responsible step in this direction.”

Home Depot

EXCLUSIVE: Home Depot, Netflix Hit Over Involvement In LGBT ‘Social Credit’ System

LGBT

Netflix

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump successfully cut a trade deal with China, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/05/12/us-news/us-and-china-reach-deal-to-slash-tariffs-officials-say/?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=nypost&amp;utm_source=twitter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announcing</a> our biggest adversary has agreed to scale back tariffs on U.S. imports to just 10 percent for three months.
The announcement likely came as a shock to <a href="https://x.com/atrupar/status/1920878476837449764?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1920878476837449764%7Ctwgr%5E2ca4dd2d76e13621845f6a6b8705bbcb9bb0d590%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fmarkets%2Ffake-news-narrative-empty-ports-empty-shelves-suffers-spectacular-implosion%3Fref%3Dbiztoc.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the left-wing media</a> and <a href="https://x.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1921669522102104360" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Democrats</a> who swore it would never, ever happen. But it was a good reminder that the president understands what mainstream American media has failed to cover: China is losing this trade war. Chinese <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/04/30/business/chinese-factory-activity-plunges-as-trump-tariffs-hammer-bilateral-trade/?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=nypost&amp;utm_source=twitter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">factory floors</a> are deserted, and cargo bookings between the United States and China are <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/04/29/business/shipments-from-china-to-drop-by-35-due-to-trump-tariffs-port-of-la-chief/?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=nypost&amp;utm_source=twitter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">down</a> by nearly 50%.
And it’s not just China. Trump also recently announced a trade agreement with the <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-announces-his-first-trade-deal-with-the-uk-heres-whats-in-it-120417143.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">United Kingdom</a> and is closing in on deals with India, Japan, and South Korea.
Back at home, American manufacturers are seeing a <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2025/05/05/american-business-returns-trump-tariffs-china/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">surge in demand</a>, ramping up production, preparing to hire new workers, and announcing <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/gilead-announces-11-billion-new-investments-us-2025-05-07/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">billions</a> of dollars in new investments. Meanwhile, President Trump is determined to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/12/trump-tax-bill/83584926007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cut taxes</a>, red tape, and regulations, all of which are sure to help American consumers and businesses alike.
You might think this success would change how American businesses think about Trump. Too often, big companies substitute their core values for the zero-sum game of appealing to one side of the political spectrum, costing them public trust and hurting their bottom line.
(Two words: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/19/dylan-mulvaney-bud-light-boycott" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bud Light</a>.)
Simply put, corporate America has a long track record of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/15/news/walmart-doug-mcmillon-charlottesville-trump/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">poor decision-making</a> and choosing the wrong hills to die on. After initially embracing Trump, many big businesses have now turned on him, thanks to tariffs. They may want to reconsider.
After Donald Trump’s resounding victory last November, big retailers from Walmart to Amazon to Target were quick to <a href="https://thehill.com/business/5054083-trump-embrace-ceos-friends/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reach out</a>, <a href="https://thehill.com/business/5054083-trump-embrace-ceos-friends/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">applaud</a>, and align themselves with the new president, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/target-donated-1-million-to-trump-vance-inauguration-tariffs-dei-2025-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">donating millions</a> for inaugural ceremonies and even <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/trump-inauguration-president-2025/card/why-walmart-s-ceo-is-at-the-inauguration-8NmecvA3oo7tG8dPdI8F" target="_blank" rel="noopener">attending themselves</a> in person, <a href="https://thehill.com/business/5054083-trump-embrace-ceos-friends/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">congratulating</a> President Trump on his victory, and generally making nice with the White House’s newest occupant.
&#8220;Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory. No nation has bigger opportunities,” wrote <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-victory-business-leaders-react/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on X</a>.
“<a href="https://fortune.com/2025/03/25/walmart-heiress-christy-walton-nonparitsan-advert/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The dignity of our country is not for sale</a>,” reads an ad by Walmart heiress Christy Walton placed in the New York Times shortly after President Trump’s win.
But the honeymoon ended as soon as it began.
&#8220;These tariffs may be aimed at China, but the bill will be charged to American consumers who will pay more at the checkout,&#8221; <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/03/22/big-retailers-push-back-on-trump-tarriffs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">warned</a> the vice president of international trade for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents Target and Best Buy, among other major retailers.
Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz said on <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/06/mattel-ceo-toy-manufacturing-trump-tariffs.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNBC</a> that manufacturing won’t come to America, but price hikes will.
Unfortunately for these businesses, gaslighting families into blaming Trump for the high prices won’t work. A recent focus group in Pennsylvania <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/04/11/focus-groups-pennsylvania-swing-voters-voice-tariff-confusion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> that, even though voters didn’t fully understand tariffs, they still supported Trump.
Bottom line: Big retail would do well to sit tight and stick with the president on this one.
The payoff will be more than just dollars and profits. They’ll have earned the trust of the public, demonstrating they take seriously the principles and pride of being an American, and in the long run, consumers will thank them with their wallets for years to come.
Carly Bird is a Republican strategist and founder and president of Bird’s Eye Consulting. She previously served as the national spokeswoman for Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

A Walmart Store Ahead Of Earnings Figures

A Warning To Big Retail: Stick With America First

Bud Light

China

Tariffs

Ever since the unconscionable horror of October 7 and the brutal war that followed, there’s been a disturbing uptick in corporate activists competing to have the worst possible takes on the conflict — and getting big business to share those takes. This activism is aimed not at establishing a serious way for America’s largest tech &amp; defense companies to view the war against Hamas, but for foisting activist (i.e. non-fiduciary) objectives on the way they conduct their business involving it.
This is nothing new — last year saw a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/since-october-7-anti-israel-activism-has-failed-where-it-matters-most" target="_blank" rel="noopener">surge</a> in anti-Israel activism at numerous shareholder meetings, albeit not activism that resonated with the shareholder audience (in fact, its influence is notably decreasing). Why, then, does this activism persist? This Tuesday, we got a rare sneak peak at the real reason.
Intel is one of the largest private businesses operating in Israel. The company has been in the country since 1974 and is maybe the most crucial company in the Israeli high-tech sector, with other major corporate actors like Nvidia &amp; Apple also maintaining major presences in the region. And yet, despite this 50+ year business relationship that’s not only created tremendous wealth for Israel but generated massive return for Intel shareholders across the globe, corporate activists aren’t happy. Again, nothing new. But at Intel’s <a href="https://central.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/vsm/web?pvskey=INTEL25" target="_blank" rel="noopener">annual meeting</a> on Tuesday, the company fielded a proposal urging the company not merely for risk analysis, but to divest from the country entirely.
Dubbed an “ethical impact assessment,” the <a href="https://d1io3yog0oux5.cloudfront.net/_1d2493931f76b3eb3a02f6d948d9f540/intel/files/documents/flipbook/Intel_Proxy_2025_Files/90/index.html#zoom=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shareholder proposal</a> pushed Intel to consider the “moral &amp; legal implications” of continuing to do business with Israel — many anti-Israel proposals, from <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1526520/000119312524129373/d725214dars.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TripAdvisor</a> to <a href="https://investors.rtx.com/static-files/f5957454-3174-4285-bf5f-06462044467d" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Raytheon</a>, couch the pressure to divest in innocuous, noble-sounding sentiments involving ethics and human rights (or borrow activist terms like ‘apartheid.’)
Activists at Intel argued that the company should completely “reassess [its] business relationship with Israel,” alleging that the human costs of war against Hamas are grounds for Intel to uproot its ties to a country it’s invested in for more than half a century. And then came the <a href="https://central.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/vsm/web?pvskey=INTEL25" target="_blank" rel="noopener">boom</a>: “We risk exclusion from important ESG indices that screen for human rights compliance in conflict zones.”
There’s no analysis that could make it plainer than that. The real case for why Israel’s most consistent business partners should divest, at its heart, boiled down to ESG ratings. That’s the case: this long standing relationship, that both provides shareholder return and protects innocent civilian life in a just war against one of the world’s most brutal terrorist organizations, has to go so that Intel’s ESG score doesn’t suffer.
<div id="attachment_918149" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-918149" class="size-large wp-image-918149" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2213569192-864x576.jpg" alt="A display of missiles and drones at the Lockheed Martin Corp. booth at the DEFEA international defense exhibition in Athens, Greece, on Wednesday, May 7, 2025. The Defence Exhibition Athens takes place between May 6 to May 8. Photographer: Nick Paleologos/Bloomberg via Getty Images" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2213569192-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2213569192-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2213569192-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-2213569192.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />A display of missiles and drones at the Lockheed Martin Corp. booth at the DEFEA international defense exhibition in Athens, Greece, on Wednesday, May 7, 2025. Nick Paleologos/Bloomberg via Getty Images</div>
The implicit premise here is, of course, that Israel’s actions to subdue Hamas and defend itself against a fighting force that expressly seeks its annihilation are incompatible with ESG dogma. And it’s not just Intel — today, Lockheed Martin shareholders will vote for the second year in a row on a <a href="https://www.lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed-martin/eo/documents/annual-reports/2025-proxy-statement.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shareholder proposal</a> pushing the company to stop its similarly long standing relationship with Israel, arguing that Lockheed selling fighter jets renders it complicit in war crimes.
These activist narratives, while arguably nobly intentioned, make the perfect (i.e. a world where war apparently doesn’t involve business decisions and difficult questions) the enemy of the good (i.e. the real world). War has never been free of moral questions — and the philosophical questions involved in companies that operate in war-adjacent industries are real and <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1996368/000109690625000722/bowy_px14a6g.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">worth discussing</a>. But ESG-aligned activists are making it abundantly clear that their answers don’t pass muster.
Pushing a tech company like Intel to divest from an entire nation based on nothing more than chronically vague statements about human rights and a handful of Amnesty International articles opining about ‘apartheid’ (yes, that’s what activists put forward at the meeting Tuesday) isn’t a serious business argument. And pushing a weapons company like Lockheed Martin to stop selling weapons to a longtime business partner engaged in a just war, fighting terrorists that hide among innocent civilian populations, based on nothing more than vague language about “misalignment” with human rights policies, isn’t a serious business argument either.
Too often, ESG-aligned arguments boil down to profoundly unwise ideas wrapped in nice-sounding turns of phrase. Pressuring energy companies into wildly non-fiduciary <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemmagreen/2024/08/29/why-big-corporations-are-quietly-abandoning-their-climate-commitments/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">net-zero commitments</a> is portrayed as being “climate conscious.” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-radical-intolerance-behind-woke-corporate-activism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pressuring</a> companies into providing puberty blockers for employees’ children is portrayed as “healthcare,” “corporate equality,” and “inclusion.” And now, pressuring companies to divest from Israel, not for demonstrated business but activist narratives that can’t acknowledge the existence of just war, is being portrayed as “responsibly reduc[ing] risk.”
Shareholders are increasingly rejecting these arguments — given their implicit premises, perhaps that’s not surprising. But it’s as good a moment as any to remember that nice sounding business words don’t mean anything without real moral arguments behind them. And if keeping your ESG score means disarming Israeli civilians being targeted by Hamas, that says more about ESG than it does about anything else.
* * *
Isaac Willour is an award-winning journalist focusing on race, culture, and American conservatism, as well as a corporate relations analyst at Bowyer Research. His work has been featured at outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Opinion, C-SPAN, and The Daily Wire. He is a member of the Young Voices contributor program and can be found on X <a href="https://twitter.com/IsaacWillour" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@IsaacWillour</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Intel Headquarters Ahead Of Earnings Figures

How ESG Scores Became The New Weapon In The War On Israel

Boycott Divest Sanction

Dow Jones

Israel

Lockheed Martin

shareholders

We&#8217;ve seen the collapse of a lot of supposedly &#8220;grassroots&#8221; movements ever since Donald Trump took office. BLM, as we&#8217;ve <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDiA10y1ZJc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discussed</a>, has literally been dismantled on the streets of Washington, D.C. — as in, the mayor removed the BLM graffiti from the road and tore up &#8220;BLM Plaza.&#8221; No one even pretended to care about that, even though just a few years ago, it would&#8217;ve been considered blasphemy against George Floyd. But in 2025, there was no rioting. There wasn&#8217;t even really a protest.
And of course the Women&#8217;s March is also completely demoralized and gutted. When Trump was inaugurated back in 2017, half a million protesters reportedly participated in the so-called &#8220;Women&#8217;s March&#8221; in downtown Washington D.C. They claimed it was the biggest single-day protest in the history of this country. But for Trump&#8217;s second inauguration earlier this year, only a few thousand people <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/01/20/nx-s1-5258481/trump-protest-peoples-march-womens-march-inauguration-presidency-policies-agenda" target="_blank" rel="noopener">participated</a> in the so-called &#8220;People&#8217;s March,&#8221; even though the &#8220;People&#8217;s March&#8221; was supposed to be more inclusive. They expanded their branding from &#8220;women&#8221; to &#8220;people,&#8221; and yet they still lost about 99% of their manpower — or I should probably say people power.
It&#8217;s enough to make you wonder how many of these movements were ever really &#8220;grassroots&#8221; in the first place. To what extent were they relying on funding that&#8217;s no longer there? And where did that funding come from? These are questions that are worth asking, especially because we&#8217;re seeing this phenomenon happen more and more often. As Donald Trump kills federal funding for various NGOs and nonprofits, and as major corporations decide to scale back their activism, some of the Left&#8217;s biggest protest movements are falling apart. They&#8217;re proving to be unsustainable. It&#8217;s almost as if they were never actually that popular in the first place.
Maybe the most extraordinary example of this phenomenon is the current state of &#8220;Pride Month,&#8221; which is set to take place in June. When we released my film &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/videos/what-is-a-woman" target="_blank" rel="noopener">What is a Woman?</a>&#8221; back in 2022, Pride Month had the backing of pretty much every Fortune 500 company on the planet. The organizers of various &#8220;pride parades&#8221; were flush with cash. They were setting the dominant narrative — one that valorized hedonism, narcissism, perversion, and child abuse. It was never explained exactly why these people needed lavish parades all over the country, for weeks on end, in order to celebrate their sexual interests. We were just supposed to accept it, as a kind of quasi-religious ritual. Indeed, many people did accept it.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1560-the-matt-walsh-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
But just three years later, it&#8217;s clear that whatever power these people once had, they don&#8217;t have it anymore. We are now gearing up for the most muted, small-scale pride month that we&#8217;ve seen in a very long time. The organizers of some of the largest &#8220;pride parades&#8221; in the country are currently scrambling to raise money because their major corporate sponsors have stopped writing checks. That includes sponsors who have been involved with these San Francisco &#8220;pride&#8221; events going back for more than a decade. That has, of course, led to a funding shortfall that, at the moment, is threatening to derail San Francisco&#8217;s pride month, which is probably the largest in the country. Yes, it turns out that they need millions of dollars to prance naked in the streets and demonstrate their sexual preferences to as many children as possible. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 Funding shortfall" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ySfC_UpBNJ4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
When they say that they ended their relationship with Meta because Meta doesn&#8217;t do &#8220;fact-checking anymore,&#8221; they really mean that Meta has stopped banning people for stating basic biological facts. And when they say that Meta has given up on DEI, they mean that Meta will stop discriminating against applicants on the basis of their race or gender. Those policy changes were apparently a red line for the organization running the San Francisco Pride Parade, which is somehow classified as a nonprofit.
But in context, it looks a lot like a &#8220;you can&#8217;t fire me, I quit&#8221; situation. It seems like Meta dropped the pride parade, and not the other way around, given that a bunch of other major sponsors have bailed on the event as well. As you heard, the list of sponsors who have given up on San Francisco&#8217;s pride month include Comcast, Anheuser-Busch, the wine company La Crema, and Diageo, which makes Smirnoff and Guinness. So the makers of Bud Light have apparently realized that sponsoring degeneracy is not, in fact, good business. All it took was one of the most successful conservative boycotts in a generation to make them come around. Now, a bunch of other alcoholic beverage makers, including some of Anheuser-Busch&#8217;s rivals, are pre-emptively making the same decision.
As a result, the organizers now say they&#8217;re going to &#8220;knock on every door&#8221; in San Francisco as part of a desperate, last-minute bid for cash. In another interview, the organizer of this Pride event in San Francisco offers some more insight into how dire the situation has become. And in this conversation, it becomes more clear that Meta indeed made the decision to stop funding these people, not the other way around. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 Meta and Google out, sponsors to front" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/d2-OSqVoa5E?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
If you can get past the depravity, these people are actually kind of entertaining to watch. This person is trying to demonstrate that the Pride parade is really grassroots and anti-corporate. This is their way of sticking it to Meta and also Google apparently, which seems to be dropping the event as well. Accordingly, we learn that the corporations are placed at the back of the parade, and the nonprofits are at the front. You might think, &#8220;Hey, that actually sounds somewhat principled for an anti-capitalist, revolutionary-style pride parade with the theme of &#8220;resistance,&#8221;&#8221; which is what they&#8217;re going with this year. It&#8217;s just like the French Revolution — except, instead of killing the elites, they put their floats in the back. Other than that, it&#8217;s basically the same thing.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/videos/what-is-a-woman" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: Matt Walsh&#8217;s &#8220;What is a Woman?&#8221; on DailyWire+</a></h3>
But then we&#8217;re informed that there&#8217;s a big asterisk to this highly principled revolutionary, anti-capitalist stance — which is that corporations that pay a very large amount of money can still buy their way to the front of the line. In other words, in the same breath that these activists claim that they care more about their mission than the money, they admit that they&#8217;re willing to make an exception if a mega-corporation — ideally a Big Pharma giant — can come up with the right amount of cash. Then they can do whatever they want.
Read between the lines, and it&#8217;s obvious that this nonprofit is running a pretty transparent grift. This is a shakedown operation, essentially. That&#8217;s exactly what you&#8217;d expect when a bunch of highly immoral people get together and plan an event, of course. And that&#8217;s exactly what you get with the organizers of the San Francisco Pride Month. At various points in different interviews, this organizer essentially admits that this whole operation is a shakedown. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 SF Pride 2025" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h0svaXxUlMQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
It&#8217;s like watching an unkempt, delusional, homeless ex-mobster shaking down the local businesses for protection money. They&#8217;re threatening companies like Meta and Google and Comcast, as if these people have any leverage whatsoever. They&#8217;re still acting like we&#8217;re back in 2020, and most Americans haven&#8217;t yet become completely fed up with the insanity that so-called &#8220;pride parades&#8221; represent. 
But people are fed up with it, because the &#8220;gay pride movement,&#8221; such as it is, has totally backfired. The best thing the LGBT activists could have done — if they really wanted their lifestyle choices to be normalized and accepted — is act normal. All they had to do was keep their clothes on and just behave like regular people. Instead they put on leather bondage gear and danced in the street in front of children. (And in some cases, they did a lot more than just dance). They pushed for the tolerance of increasingly deranged lifestyles and sexual behaviors. They demanded more and more &#8220;tolerance&#8221; until the tolerance well ran dry. At this rate, it&#8217;s only a matter of time until we follow in Hungary&#8217;s <a href="https://x.com/amuse/status/1902069167437832376" target="_blank" rel="noopener">footsteps</a>, and ban pride parades where children could be present. We are witnessing the death of the &#8220;pride movement,&#8221; including pride parades and pride month.
At the moment, various far-Left publications appear to be realizing this. They&#8217;re melting down in response. 
From <a href="https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/03/18/san-francisco-pride-dei/?utm_content=1742314339&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pink News</a>: 
<blockquote>San Francisco publication SFist has called out companies including Comcast, Anheuser-Busch and British multinational alcoholic drinks company, Diageo, for pulling support for the event, calling the decision to back away &#8216;shameful fair-weather-friend behaviour in a time of frightening fascist action.&#8217;</blockquote>
So now they&#8217;re lashing out in hysterics, because they realize the money&#8217;s not coming back. Every normal person who sees them react like this can tell, immediately, how unhinged and unstable they are.
It was always destined to end this way. The LGBT movement, at its core, is a Marxist movement that despises western civilization and everything it was built on — namely Christianity. That&#8217;s why, at the school board meeting we discussed yesterday in Illinois, one of the trans activists railed against the so-called &#8220;white god.&#8221; That&#8217;s why they show up, in large numbers, to demand that young girls undress in front of male students. The more you let these people speak, the more overt and obvious their perversion and their anti-Christian animus becomes.
Put simply, they just couldn’t quit while they were ahead. Even when they had every major corporation and the entire federal government on their side, it wasn&#8217;t enough. Their never-ending drive to push further and further and get more and more extreme is, of course, what makes them so dangerous. But it’s also what makes them beatable. And it&#8217;s why, like BLM and the Women&#8217;s March and so many other supposedly &#8220;grassroots&#8221; movements on the Left, they are failing. 
We have seen &#8220;pride&#8221; in action. We have been subjected to nationwide celebrations of one of the seven deadly sins. And now, as was inevitable, we are seeing the fall.

Gay Pride Parades

The Downfall Of ‘Pride’ Is Here And It’s Glorious

The Downfall Of 'Pride' Is Here And It’s Glorious

California

LGBTQ

Matt Walsh

Parade

Pride

San Francisco

Working in corporate engagement, I often hear questions about why the ‘long game’ matters in changing woke company policies. If executive orders can instantly push companies away from DEI or ESG initiatives, why take other pathways? The answer is clear: lasting change takes time. JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, just proved this with a major policy shift — one that speaks louder than any theory ever could.
In 2022, JPMorgan Chase <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/03/10/opinion/i-was-debanked-by-jpmorgan-chase-but-fought-back-and-won/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">debanked</a> former U.S. Senator and Ambassador Sam Brownback, after Brownback opened an account for the newly-formed National Committee for Religious Freedom. The son of a Kansas farmer, Brownback refused to back down. When Brownback asked the bank for its rationale in shuttering his account, he was met with conflicting (and incorrect) explanations as to why.
Brownback’s debanking experience was the start of a major wave of scrutiny over exactly what conditions a bank will close a customer’s account. Victims range from nonprofit organizations like Indigenous Advance, an organization serving Ugandan widows &amp; orphans debanked by Bank of America in 2023, to Melania &amp; Barron Trump, who Melania <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2025-01-24-Letter.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">described</a> as having been debanked in her memoir, prompting further inquiry from the House Committee on Oversight.
Yet JPMorgan consistently ranked as one of the major bad actors in the debanking saga, closing not only Brownback’s account (and actually <a href="https://www.ag.ky.gov/Press%20Release%20Attachments/23.5.2%20Letter%20to%20Chase.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asked</a> for his org’s donor list for restoring service) but several other conservative nonprofits. The biggest bank in America was quickly racking up hits on its record of political neutrality and customer equality.
This trend might have gone unaddressed had the Right simply let the issue lie. Luckily, some of the most influential names in both the conservative legal, financial, and government worlds stepped up to the plate. Pressure for increased transparency and commitments to ditch any policies that could lead to a client being debanked for political reasons has come from all directions, from legal giants like <a href="https://adfmedia.org/press-release/19-states-chase-stop-misleading-customers-commit-equality-treatment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alliance Defending Freedom</a> to <a href="https://www.viewpointdiversityscore.org/news/statement-on-debanking-and-free-speech" target="_blank" rel="noopener">notable financial professionals</a> to <a href="https://www.ag.ky.gov/Press%20Release%20Attachments/23.5.2%20Letter%20to%20Chase.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">state financial officers and attorneys general</a>. As that public pressure mounted, shareholder pressure has been growing from the inside for the past three years, spurred on by organizations like the firm I work for, Bowyer Research, with Chase investors like financial advisor David Bahnsen spending literal years <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/bahnsen-takes-the-fight-today-to-jpmorgan-chase/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">urging</a> the company to clarify its approach to debanking — and fix its spotty track record on political neutrality.
And Chase listened.
In 2023, JPMorgan made the decision to axe its “social risk” policy from its payment processing arm, no longer allowing vague terms like “intolerance” and “hate” to determine whether a customer was fit to continue doing business at Chase. But the biggest win so far came several days ago, when Chase agreed to a policy change explicitly protecting customers and employees from discrimination based on religious or political views.
This is huge. Many stories about companies ditching woke policies consist of the company putting out a public statement (and often the controversy that follows). Statements are great, but they’re not the ideal. Companies can hide behind statements — and do. Several companies that have publicly made statements supporting political neutrality clearly have work to do when it comes to actually putting their policies where their mouths are.
But companies can’t hide behind policy changes. That’s why they’re a sign of both real progress and good faith. Shareholders like Bahnsen, and groups like ADF &amp; Bowyer Research, have been engaging with Chase for years to get this change. Make no mistake: Chase’s willingness to protect against future political/religious debanking is the result of real shareholders using real influence to create real change. It’s a victory for Chase’s customers and shareholders, but also for the company itself. It’s a win for a company to clear up concerns about corporate bias, a win that’s been a long time coming, and a win that hopefully many other banks will find instructive.
* * *
Isaac Willour is an award-winning journalist focusing on race, culture, and American conservatism, as well as a corporate relations analyst at Bowyer Research. His work has been featured at outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Opinion, C-SPAN, and The Daily Wire. He is a member of the Young Voices contributor program and can be found on X <a href="https://twitter.com/IsaacWillour" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@IsaacWillour</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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