Florida has accused two massive proxy advisor firms of politicizing American retirement accounts by promoting DEI and ESG, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.  
The suit from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier accuses Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis of pushing companies to adopt race and sex-based quotas and embrace climate activism. The two firms comprise about 97% of the market for proxy advice in the United States, providing investment managers with guidance and research on how to vote on shareholder proposals. 
“Defendants have used this enormous influence to push their own dogmatic agenda,  one that seeks to require publicly traded companies to strictly adhere to highly controversial—and,  in some cases, illegal policies,” Uthmeier wrote in a copy of the lawsuit obtained by The Daily Wire. 
“Quotas for outright racial balancing, gender ideology that promotes genders beyond male and female, and an insistence that concerns about global climate change should influence every company&#8217;s decision-making are Defendants&#8217; basic requirements,” the suit added. 
Uthmeier&#8217;s suit, filed in the Second Judicial Circuit of Florida, accuses the companies of two counts of violating Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and state antitrust laws. Both firms <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/regulation/proxy-advisers-iss-and-glass-lewis-are-facing-antitrust-probes-22f0ff38?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqc1i9ZlMDA8f3aZJiR2l7fRxLMEzpcyYRtsfyc4o8X1sQlk3u_hSRE9vvDqiKE%3D&amp;gaa_ts=691f1ec8&amp;gaa_sig=xwAM0c1b63ROAM2TrL-DyCp8Kzu_81NHpUXhlHCKKdp1uc0l_r4sb2vXNv1yUslNLkGqWHiK6ScdxjQHeJ7Tgw%3D%3D">are currently</a> under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission over how they direct clients on social and climate issues. 
Together, both firms work with hundreds of thousands of Florida employees’ retirement plans worth billions, according to the suit.
The suit states that the firms have pushed left-wing ideology by “recommending votes against corporate board members who are not the right gender or do not fall in line and affirmatively voice support for Defendants&#8217; ideological agenda.”
Examples cited in the suit include Glass Lewis providing <a href="https://perma.cc/9JFW-HKEM">guidelines </a>that include recommending against boards with less than one member of “an underrepresented community” on it. It defines “underrepresented” as non-white people or sexual minorities. It will also generally recommend against a board “that fails to provide explicit disclosure concerning the board’s role in overseeing [climate change] issues.”
Right now, DailyWire+ annual memberships are fifty percent off during our Black Friday sale. Join now at <a class="c-link c-link--focus-visible c-link--underline" href="http://dailywire.com/blackfriday" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="http://dailywire.com/blackfriday" data-sk="tooltip_parent">dailywire.com/blackfriday</a>.
ISS has adopted similar <a href="https://perma.cc/N9TG-B7X9">guidelines</a>, noting that it will generally vote against companies with no women on the board, against boards with no racial or ethnic diversity, and vote against companies it says have not taken &#8220;minimum steps” to address “climate change” risks. 
“Florida is done allowing two unaccountable foreign-owned private corporations to manipulate shareholder votes behind closed doors,” Uthmeier told The Daily Wire. “ISS and Glass Lewis claim to be neutral advisors, but they use their near-total control of the proxy-voting market to push divisive political mandates that threaten retiree savings, distort corporate governance, and undermine the rule of law. That ends now.”
The suit was supported by Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research. 
“We will continue to encourage and support aggressive enforcement action until ISS and Glass Lewis stop their abuses and commit to transparency, neutrality, and true accountability to the investors and consumers they are supposed to serve,” he said. 
In August 2023, the House Judiciary launched an <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/letters.pdf">investigation</a> into ISS and Glass Lewis, probing their partnership with climate activist groups and pushing to &#8220;decarbonize&#8221; corporations.

National-Conservatism-Conference-in-Washington

EXCLUSIVE: Florida Sues Major Financial Firms Over DEI And ESG Push

EXCLUSIVE: Florida Sues Major Financial Firms Over DEI, ESG Push

Climate Change

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

finance

Florida

Investors

Retirement

The organization that facilitates medical education in the United States promised to fight federal and state efforts to crack down on transgender ideology, leaked footage obtained by The Daily Wire shows.
Top leadership at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) promised to continue backing challenges at a town hall meeting last month, according to footage obtained by Do No Harm. In addition to administering the MCAT, the medical school admissions test, the AAMC sponsors the accrediting body for allopathic medical schools.
In an October 8 virtual town hall, AAMC President David Skorton said he was “very concerned” about the federal and state crackdown on transgender ideology and that the issue was a “high priority” for his organization when asked about so-called “attacks” on the transgender community.
“It&#8217;s easy to say we&#8217;re very concerned, but we are very concerned about this. Not only because of health care issues … but also other issues related to not just health care, but the psychological effect on people who will feel excluded and actually attacked,” Skorton said during the meeting. “We have a lot of work to do in this area, and it&#8217;s definitely, definitely a high priority for us.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
VIDEO: Leaders of the Association of American Medical Colleges double down on their support for transgender procedures and promise to continue challenging state and federal actions to protect kids from the life-altering procedures. The video was obtained by <a href="https://twitter.com/donoharm?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@donoharm</a> <a href="https://t.co/l11PYI0evU">pic.twitter.com/l11PYI0evU</a>
— Leif Le Mahieu (@leif_lemahieu) <a href="https://twitter.com/leif_lemahieu/status/1990796851852030352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Answering the same question, Frank Trinity, the AAMC’s chief legal officer, noted that the organization is backing a challenge to the Trump administration’s executive action cutting off funding for hospitals that perform transgender procedures on kids.
“Since 2022, the AAMC has been a part of a coalition of more than 20 national medical groups, joining an amicus effort filed in many courts across the country supporting challenges to mostly state laws that would essentially prohibit gender affirming medical care,” Trinity said.
Trinity added that the landmark Supreme Court case that upheld Tennessee’s right to protect kids from transgender procedures was a “setback.”
“There was a setback, as you know, in the Skrmetti case coming out of Tennessee with the Supreme Court dismissing a challenge,” he said, referencing Skrmetti v. United States, which held that states can bar transgender procedures for minors. “But those cases are still going forward. There&#8217;s two different cases challenging the executive order that would effectively ban federal support for gender affirming medical care.”
He noted that the AAMC had joined in a coalition with other professional medical organizations in filing an <a href="https://www.aamc.org/media/86176/download?attachment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">amicus brief</a> at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order that cuts funding for entities that promote child transgender procedures.
“Gender-affirming care supports an individual with gender dysphoria as they explore their gender identity in contrast with efforts to change the individual&#8217;s gender identity to match their sex assigned at birth, which are known to be ineffective and harmful,” the brief claims.
“Empirical evidence indicates that [transgender procedures], including the prescription of puberty blockers and hormone therapy to carefully evaluated patients who meet diagnostic criteria, can alleviate clinically significant distress and lead to significant improvements in the mental health and overall wellbeing of adolescents with gender dysphoria.”
The care advocated for by the AAMC included treatments like puberty blockers and placing young kids on cross-sex hormones, both of which can have permanent impacts on fertility, sexual health, and bone development.
The AAMC has joined numerous other briefs challenging both federal and state laws protecting kids from transgender procedures. This includes an effort at the district court in <a href="https://www.aamc.org/media/81976/download?attachment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Maryland</a> to block Trump’s executive actions and state laws in <a href="https://www.aamc.org/media/83841/download?attachment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ohio</a>, <a href="https://www.aamc.org/media/75636/download?attachment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Montana</a>, <a href="https://www.aamc.org/media/71811/download?attachment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Arkansas</a>, and many others.
“We will continue to be a part of that coalition,” Trinity said after discussing the AAMC’s legal efforts.
Speaking on the issue in broad terms, Malika Fair, the AAMC’s chief community, opportunity, and engagement officer, said that the organization was focused on “supporting the entire patient population as well, which is under attack.”
Skorton then jumped in to say that “our colleagues in the medical profession” were also under attack.
The AAMC works with 171 accredited medical schools in the United States and Canada, over 400 teaching hospitals and health systems, and 70 academic societies.
Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, the chairman of Do No Harm, called the footage from the AAMC town hall troubling.
“It is concerning that the AAMC, which is essentially a political activist organization, has so much influence over medical schools and future doctors,” he told The Daily Wire. “Its support for irreversible pediatric sex-change procedures demonstrates how disconnected the group is from biological reality and evidence-based practices.”
In more of the footage, the AAMC leaders were questioned about their approach to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.
“I want to be plain about it. I believe as I have for decades that the data show that more diverse teams do a better job of solving problems, especially in complex situations, and there are a few things more complex than medical care,” Skorton said. “So, I believe that working for a more diverse medical workforce is an imperative, and I believe that we&#8217;re doing that, and we&#8217;ll continue to do it with all deference to the law, and, I guess that&#8217;s a straightforward answer to it.”
“We&#8217;re committed to continuing to work for a more broad background in those delivering healthcare, of course, in line with the law,” he added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
LEAKED VIDEO: The president of the Association of American Medical Colleges says that he remains committed to pursuing a &#8220;diverse medical workforce.&#8221; The group has rebranded its DEI efforts in recent weeks. The video was obtained by <a href="https://twitter.com/donoharm?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@donoharm</a>. <a href="https://t.co/DHlPKrwumI">pic.twitter.com/DHlPKrwumI</a>
— Leif Le Mahieu (@leif_lemahieu) <a href="https://twitter.com/leif_lemahieu/status/1990798169039638730?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
This commitment to diversity came after Skorton sent out an email on October 3 to AAMC announcing that it would be rebranding its affinity group on “Diversity and Inclusion” to be called the Group on Collaboration, Engagement, and Community.
“This change is being made in part to align with how programming has evolved for this group and the AAMC, as well as in response to feedback from member institutions who continue to experience external pressures,” the email said
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1001889" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-17-at-11.47.49-AM.png" alt="" width="1207" height="302" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-17-at-11.47.49-AM.png 1207w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-17-at-11.47.49-AM-300x75.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-17-at-11.47.49-AM-1024x256.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-17-at-11.47.49-AM-768x192.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1207px) 100vw, 1207px" /></div>
“The AAMC’s mission and vision are not changing,” Skorton wrote. “We remain deeply committed to convening our community and supporting the professional development of our constituents through these affinity groups.”
Reference to the group has already been scrubbed from the AAMC’s page on affinity groups, but archived pages show that the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250509064034/https://www.aamc.org/learn-network/affinity-groups" target="_blank" rel="noopener">purpose</a> of that group was to “guide the advancement of diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout medicine and biomedical sciences.”
Do No Harm, which released a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/heres-how-much-medical-schools-pay-for-membership-in-woke-academic-association" target="_blank" rel="noopener">comprehensive 80-page report</a> last year highlighting the AAMC’s embrace of DEI and leftist politics, was skeptical of the rebrand.
“The AAMC’s rebranding of DEI doesn’t fool anyone; even the CEO said its ‘mission and vision aren&#8217;t changing.’ If we are to restore integrity to medical education, then schools need to think twice before pledging allegiance to the AAMC,” Goldfarb said.
Do No Harm’s push against politics in medicine has been joined by other doctors who want to get back to focusing on scientific medicine. Dr. Charles Lockwood, the executive vice president and dean of the University of South Florida Health Morsani College of Medicine, recently published a <a href="https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(25)00745-4/fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noopener">viewpoint</a> in the American Journal of Medicine lambasting the inclusion of politics in medicine.
Lockwood told The Daily Wire that he was inspired to write the article because of the AAMC’s embrace of so-called “gender-affirming care” for kids.
“It is shocking to me that this would be embraced, embraced with such passion, when, again, no evidence of benefit, no evidence to reduce the rate of suicide, no evidence of mental health improvements, no evidence that we are actually treating gender dysphoria, and many cases where there&#8217;s tremendous regret and detransitioning, which is difficult to do,” Lockwood said.
He said he thought most rank-and-file doctors opposed gender procedures in schools, but that leadership at the organizations was pushing it for political reasons.
“We need to move medicine out of harm&#8217;s way, and out of the political debate and back to empiricism and the embrace of scientific method of evidence based medicine back to self correction, which it clearly is departed from,” Lockwood said. “When we do that as a profession, we&#8217;ll find that we regain the public trust.”

MixCollage-17-Nov-2025-01-55-PM-6920

LEAKED FOOTAGE: Medical Org Vows To Fight Trump’s Crackdown On Transgender Ideology

Academia

medical school

medicine

Transgender

Despite President Trump’s Executive Order 14151 declaring DEI initiatives illegal, wasteful, and discriminatory, and mandating their termination across all government agencies, DEI appears to be a sort of zombie — dead by decree, but animated by cultural and institutional inertia. On the same day — February 4, 2025 — that the so-called “Dismantle DEI” bill was introduced to both the House (H.R. 925) and Senate (S.382), I optimistically fantasized about a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dei-deserves-an-accurate-eulogy">eulogy for DEI</a>. Unfortunately, while some progress has been made, largely at the individual state levels, the leftist leviathan that is DEI remains well-entrenched across a wide swath of our institutions.
As we close out the year, there are no scheduled hearings, markups, or votes on the bill; and <a href="http://www.apple.com">a 2025 survey by Paradigm </a>(via DiversityResources.com) found that over 80% of major companies have either held their DEI budgets steady or increased them, with only 19% reducing them. These numbers are harder to track for universities and non-profits, partly because many schools and organizations have strategically rebranded DEI programs with titles such as “student success,” “inclusive excellence,” and “community equity,” but a report from <a href="https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/DEI-Funds-UNIVERSITY-Diversity-Equity-and-Inclusion-Funds-and-Fundraising_Final.pdf">Defending Education</a> earlier this year showed that DEI funds still exist for schools in at least 44 states, and hundreds of millions of dollars are still being poured into the cause. Non-profits are finding that many <a href="https://diversity.com/post/dei-in-philanthropy-equity-nonprofit-funding-trends">donors are doubling down</a> on DEI efforts, albeit tying funding to more measurable outcomes.
The velocity and volume of DEI spending over the past 15 years is staggering — not merely in millions or billions, but plausibly trillions of dollars. In 2011, Obama kick-started the campaign with <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/08/18/executive-order-13583-establishing-coordinated-government-wide-initiativ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Executive Order 13583,</a> which directed the Office of Personnel Management, Office of Management and Budget, and EEOC to develop strategic plans and metrics for DEI across over 50 agencies. It had no specific budget or spending allotments, but it served as the blueprint for such programs across non-governmental institutions, as well as corporations, universities, and non-profits. President Joe Biden&#8217;s subsequent <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">EO 13985</a> required every federal agency to file an Equity Action Plan.
The Biden administration shifted DEI into overdrive, allocating some <a href="https://www.bizpacreview.com/2025/03/10/biden-admin-went-on-trillion-dollar-spending-spree-embedding-dei-across-govt-study-says-1527980/">$1.1 trillion to 460 programs across 24 agencies</a> based on the FY2025 Equity Action Plan filings. Importantly, all of these dollar amounts exclude indirect costs such as litigation, compliance audits, and opportunity costs from DEI-related mandates.
Universities <a href="https://www.emerging-strategy.com/dei-spending-in-u-s-higher-ed-a-carnegie-classification-analysis/">spend billions of dollars</a> per year on DEI programs, with the University of Michigan alone famously spending some $250 million for one of the more <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/magazine/university-of-michigan-dei.html">spectacular DEI failures</a>. <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/top-dei-staff-at-public-universities-pocket-massive-salaries-as-experts-question-motives-of-initiatives">Salaries for the top officers</a> in these departments, which typically range in size from 3 to 25 people, average between $180,000 and $250,000 annually.
In the private sector, JPMorgan Chase committed $30 billion to racial equity and DEI initiatives over just five years (2020-2025). Microsoft invested $150 million in one year alone (2020) to expand its existing racial equity grants and DEI programs. Google previously contributed to over 200 groups dedicated to DEI  and has invested billions of dollars since 2014 in personnel, training, and supplier diversity programs. It is estimated that nationally, annual corporate DEI spending has averaged approximately $10 billion to $20 billion per year (see <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/private-capital/our-insights/discussing-the-state-of-diversity-in-global-private-markets">here</a> and <a href="https://buildremote.co/companies/keeping-dei/">here</a>).
Secretary Hegseth is working to repair the DEI damage in our Department of War, but he has a Herculean task in front of him. A host of veterans and patriots have written and spoken about the tremendous damage that DEI policies have inflicted on our military — eviscerating combat readiness, eroding standards, crippling morale and recruitment, and threatening our national security. [See Air Force<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Irresistible-Revolution-Marxisms-Conquest-Unmaking-ebook/dp/B0952DZ46D/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3ISCOE04FCUYF&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.5ikuS0t11e1M8t_dVKVrK0TTRBBR-k0bvxb066YffGm6BPUZBcpEf9jSv9lIp0DqErCYDn-r2fzbdMYNma9Kf7N7olk95VSUBkM_oaV0VVY.g1mUHZ8H8y2vc0tRanN4ob_E0DV-GUXH8iuHQnuttM4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=matt+lohmeier&amp;qid=1762282380&amp;sprefix=matt+lohmeirer,aps,333&amp;sr=8-1"> Under Secretary Lohmeier</a>, <a href="https://starrs.us/message-to-senators-dei-is-a-trojan-horse/">Major General Arbuckle (retired)</a>, <a href="https://starrs.us/mike-rose-dei-is-manifesting-itself-in-the-military-in-very-dangerous-ways/">South Carolina state Sen. Rose</a> (retired), <a href="https://starrs.us/report-of-the-national-independent-panel-on-military-service-and-readiness/">Lieutenant General Bishop</a> (retired), and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cigarettes-dei-and-our-military">Greg Salsbury</a>.]
Prominent scholars such as <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=christopher+rufo+america%27s+cultural+revolution&amp;crid=23UXO1WIKCS3R&amp;sprefix=christopher+rufo,aps,559&amp;ref=nb_sb_ss_p13n-expert-pd-ops-ranker_3_16" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Christopher Rufo</a>, <a href="https://victorhanson.com/ten-problems-with-dei-that-frighten-the-public/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Victor Davis Hanson</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Woke-Racism-Religion-Betrayed-America-ebook/dp/B095JLK96B/ref=sr_1_2?adgrpid=1343603773906492&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IhO6sgetZ4xjVYkCQv6_yN8VU__vAYMgkAqNPiX-0dg5DjQYq04Sjw2s-sKvWOJnMVupxX_Yerqm02TXT5B99DUIyB6pCi2aSAbobw3mofKWFaCzcP5WxvsIn-bzbW5hLWqIQK9PimIL3x5tcvJkDnH6Gj8YaNot26qk2IxCtX0f2lnyfnYcAGD-3IwUM6JLr2cjH0ijk_I-zVPciT0hJFosnOibZXf_9SCjg30tpbb_LQpGO9MhO0grSda6P182tAWtWRCGRXAkcV_NXXLRrlPhJOhSlFSAt4kPEbl-oHo.pjLOCn7X5k3CptyBF2TDIFGiFcVN5Oqg_cKEOeGgdlU&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;hvadid=83975558545606&amp;hvbmt=be&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvlocphy=71501&amp;hvnetw=o&amp;hvqmt=e&amp;hvtargid=kwd-83975581857106:loc-190&amp;hydadcr=8480_13544230&amp;keywords=john+mcwhorter+books&amp;mcid=359b8020a2b43364bd749073b564a123&amp;msclkid=0565530031fc1a91b3bc3a078790b5f4&amp;qid=1762113141&amp;sr=8-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">John McWhorter</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=heather+macdonald+author&amp;crid=2GWXB3DP1BDRH&amp;sprefix=heather+mac,aps,328&amp;ref=nb_sb_ss_p13n-expert-pd-ops-ranker_1_11" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Heather MacDonald</a>, and many others have written extensively about similar destruction inflicted across our other governmental, academic, and private sector institutions and culture. <a href="https://starrs.us/the-dei-ruse-is-imploding/">Dr. Hanson</a> concludes: “In the end, DEI will implode because of its many contradictions: it is racist to the core; it is illegal and violates court decisions and the Constitution; it destroys meritocracy; and it is utterly incoherent in adjudicating who and who does not deserve racial preferences.” 
The implosion may take a while. The enormous spending led to an unprecedented propaganda campaign, helping to cement deep-seated misconceptions in a large portion of the population. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/11/19/views-of-dei-have-become-slightly-more-negative-among-us-workers/">Pew Research Center</a> reports that while the American public’s support for DEI has decreased slightly over the last couple of years, the country remains roughly split on whether it is a positive or negative influence. About half still view DEI as being about fairness and opportunity.
In a recent viral video, comedian Adam Carolla discusses the best way for the current administration to combat the anti-ICE protesters as it pursues illegal immigrants across the country. He wryly recommends that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement be retitled as something like National Immigration and Customs Enforcement — thus adding the letter “N” to the current ICE acronym, making it “NICE.” He goes on to make several jokes about how difficult it would be for anyone, including the media and Democrats, to attack NICE people.
In all seriousness, Carolla has identified the brilliant but insidious invulnerability of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and why it is so difficult to drive a stake through its heart (to mix zombie and vampire metaphors). Who could possibly argue with the promotion of such congenial-sounding words? Of course, the words are not the issue. Rather, it is the programs and policies that are implemented under their banner.
<a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/how-dei-corrupts-americas-universities">Christopher Rufo</a> observed that, in practice, the policies bearing these labels usually promote precisely the opposite of what the words would imply. Diversity almost always involves implicit and explicit racial discrimination, excluding or limiting some groups by their skin color or identity. This is how you get things like segregated dorms and graduation ceremonies (“affinity celebrations”). Equity involves disparate and often unfair treatment of various identity groups (typically based on race, color, gender, and sex) in an attempt to equalize not opportunities, but outcomes. This is what produces outcomes like the elimination of standardized test scores to ensure that underqualified candidates are still considered. Inclusion usually restricts ideas and people who oppose the prevailing doctrine of the oppressed and oppressors. This is how you end up with things like conservatives being blocked from employment consideration or targeted for special IRS consideration. Perhaps most importantly, as well argued by <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/new-clerisy-how-thomas-sowell-predicted-rise-and-ruin-dei-bureaucracies">Thomas Sowell</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Woke-Racism-Religion-Betrayed-America/dp/0593423062">John McWhorter</a>, these programs ultimately harm more than help the very groups they claim to champion.
I <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cigarettes-dei-and-our-military">previously identified</a> commonalities between the propaganda campaigns for cigarette smoking and DEI. Sadly, thanks to billions of dollars of marketing — akin to views of cigarette smoking in the past — many, if not most, Americans are blind to the real impact of DEI, and that it is part of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-state-of-our-political-divide?author=Greg+Salsbury&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=The+State+Of+Our+Political+Divide" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new Marxism.</a>
The challenge lies in how to open their eyes. Which message resonates more: a rigorously documented essay by a scholar like Dr. Hanson, or a 30-second TikTok clip decrying that we “should not be haters,” and that “diversity is our strength” — with music, dance, and millions of likes behind it? Perhaps Adam Carolla could assist with a counter.
Killing off the other half of the DEI zombie will require a three-pronged initiative focusing on education, litigation, and legislation. 
Firstly, we must educate the public by exposing the specific and measurable harms caused by DEI — from the erosion of meritocracy to the suppression of dissent. The more the public hears about the specifics — such as biological men dominating women’s sports competitions — the more they understand and oppose DEI policies.
Secondly, many DEI policies and practices have been and remain illegal — often blatantly violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. More plaintiffs must come forward to challenge these violations in court. A few significant settlements or verdicts in such cases could have a massive impact nationally. Additionally, any non-profit organization engaging in ideological enforcement under the guise of DEI should face a review of its 501(c)(3) status and an investigation to determine whether it is violating nondiscrimination laws.
Thirdly, right now, formal opposition to DEI rests solely on President Trump’s recent executive order, which could disappear as quickly as the next presidential election. We must demand that our representatives advance the House and Senate “Dismantle DEI” bills — codifying reform beyond executive fiat.
* * *
Greg Salsbury, Ph.D., serves on the Board of Advisors for <a href="https://starrs.us">STARRS.US</a>., and is the former president of Western Colorado University. He earned his Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Southern California and an M.A. from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Fist power painted on a wall

DEI: The Billion-Dollar Zombie That Won’t Stay Dead

American Universities

Biden Administration

Christopher Rufo

Diversity

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Thomas Sowell

Trump Administration

Higher education is in a downward spiral of decreasing public confidence from which it is incapable of escaping without outside intervention.
For ideological and political reasons, however, most of higher ed is rejecting out-of-hand the Trump administration’s offers to help move higher ed back towards the center. That may prove to be a historic mistake.
A recent <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/15/growing-share-of-americans-say-the-us-higher-education-system-is-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/">Pew survey shows</a> 70% of Americans, including majorities across all major demographic groups and both political parties, believe academia is going in the wrong direction. In 2010, 75% of Americans thought college was “very important,” <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/695003/perceived-importance-college-hits-new-low.aspx">according to Gallup</a>, and today only 35% do. This is an all time low.
There are many reasons for the loss of confidence, but part of it certainly is that higher education, particularly at the “elite” level, is a liberal bubble isolated from the mainstream. <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/9/3/faculty-response-liberal/">At Harvard</a>, for example, under 10% of the faculty self-identify as conservative or very conservative compared with <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/655190/political-parties-historically-polarized-ideologically.aspx">approximately 38%</a> of the general public. Over 60% identify as liberal/very liberal compared to only 25% of the general public.
Harvard and other elite institutions do not “look like” America politically. For decades campuses cultivated a <a href="https://criticalrace.org/">Critical Race and DEI culture</a> that prizes group identity over individual merit, orthodoxy over debate, and exclusion over persuasion.
I see it at Cornell. DEI is a worldview that treats people as members of group identity categories and functions with something close to religious fanaticism. Changing the name from DEI to Inclusion and Belonging, as Cornell did, is just a superficial ploy.
<div id="attachment_995745" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-995745" class="size-large wp-image-995745" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2216970707-864x576.jpg" alt="TOPSHOT - Graduates gather as they attend commencement ceremony at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 29, 2025. US President Donald Trump is furious at Harvard for rejecting his administration's push for oversight on admissions and hiring, amid the president's claims the school is a hotbed of anti-Semitism and &quot;woke&quot; liberal ideology. (Photo by Rick Friedman / AFP) (Photo by RICK FRIEDMAN/AFP via Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2216970707-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2216970707-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2216970707-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2216970707.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />RICK FRIEDMAN/AFP via Getty Images</div>
While mocking the general public, higher ed depends on that public, in the form of the federal government, which provides <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/G160311A027NBEA">hundreds of billions</a> in federal grants and support annually. Many top-tier research universities rely on federal grants and support for substantial <a href="https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/how-much-federal-funding-do-colleges-and-universities-receive">double-digit</a> percentages of their budgets.
With the change in federal government control from Joe Biden to Donald Trump, a clash over funding and the trajectory of higher education was inevitable.
President Trump’s critics say he is trying to smash higher education. That is wrong. What he is doing, with a bluntness that makes people uncomfortable, is using federal funding, the only lever left to rescue the failing system.
The administration’s new <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Compact-for-Academic-Excellence-in-Higher-Education-10.1.pdf">Compact</a> for Academic Excellence in Higher Education offers financial incentives and expedited funding for institutions that reform and certify compliance in encouraging diversity of viewpoint, stopping discrimination, and raising merit rather than group identity as the focal point for advancement.
It’s a carrot and stick approach. The reward for moving towards the center is preferential funding treatment. For those that refuse, they can continue in the current system, where scrutiny of civil rights compliance risks loss of funding.
While the Trump administration has encouraged schools to seriously consider and provide feedback on the Compact, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/universities-defiant-trumps-academic-excellence-compact-feedback-deadline-passes">most who have responded</a> have rejected any negotiation.
Instead, academia has embarked on a campaign to demonize the Trump proposal, framing it as “extortion.” While the higher education public relations campaign has had <a href="https://archive.is/2025.10.24-233217/https://www.chronicle.com/article/americans-think-trump-is-overreaching-on-higher-ed">some impact</a> in turning the public against Trump’s Compact, that doesn’t change the reality of public loss of confidence in higher education.
Objections to the Compact center on maintaining academic independence. That’s great in concept, but the reality is that nearly-complete independence has turned higher ed into an unsustainable political bubble.
Up to now, higher ed had almost unlimited funding and independence. All they had to do was not go crazy left. But they couldn’t restrain themselves, and that’s how they got Trump’s Compact.
An adult in the room is needed, and the Trump administration is attempting to play that role.
Most of the Compact’s proposed reforms are necessary. Protect free expression. Enforce existing conduct rules. Make administrators responsible for compliance. Limit practices that have turned American universities into leftist enclaves detached from the nation. The goal is not to impose a conservative orthodoxy but to restore diversity of thought and bring higher ed back towards the center.
Though the original deadline for the first nine schools has passed, the administration <a href="https://x.com/EDSecMcMahon/status/1979323613548364278">continues in discussion</a> with them and others and has signaled openness as well. The universities should engage enthusiastically.
The Compact is not perfect, and there are some provisions that could be negotiated at least on a school-by-school basis. But to reject it out of hand is a sign that higher ed has not yet come to grips with reality.
Under the current system, America’s universities are losing the public&#8217;s confidence and will lose public funding and relevance. The Compact is not an attempt to destroy higher education, it’s an attempt to save higher ed from itself.
* * *
William A. Jacobson is a Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School and founder of the <a href="https://legalinsurrectionfoundation.org/">Legal Insurrection Foundation</a> and its <a href="https://equalprotect.org/">Equal Protection Project</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Join us now during our exclusive Deal of the Decade. Get everything for $7 a month. Not as fans. As fighters. Go to <a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/">DailyWire.com/Subscribe</a> to join now.

Widener Memorial Library with Huge Veritas Banners Harvard University Cambridge MA

Trump Extends An Olive Branch To Academia. The Ivory Tower Slaps It Away.

Cornell University

Donald Trump

Harvard University

Ivy League

Opinion

When you think about corporate wokeness, what comes to mind? DEI and ESG policies might be the most prominent examples, for good reason. But as someone in the industry of corporate engagement, helping investors use their financial influence to root out bias from America’s biggest brands, we often find ourselves asking this question: who determines parameters? Wokeness is parasitical, and its most subtle and pernicious effects emerge by latching on to legitimate corporate policies and twisting them to serve political ends.
Among the most parasitical of these organizations is the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). An activist group <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/about/our-history/">formed</a> in 1971 to combat the influence of Jim Crow, the SPLC has gradually <a href="https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/heritage-explains/what-went-wrong-the-southern-poverty-law-center">morphed</a> into a group peddling the false equivalence between conservatives and hate groups. Case in point: the SPLC’s infamous “<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map/?hm_year=2024&amp;hm_ideology=Neo-Nazi">hate map</a>.” The SPLC would like you to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Making-Hate-Pay-Corruption-Southern/dp/1642934399">believe</a> that the map represents American hate in an image, with many of the groups on the map, such as the Klan, white supremacists, and the Westboro Baptist Church, being genuine hate groups. And yet, when you look at the list, you’ll see some groups that decidedly aren’t hateful: Alliance Defending Freedom, American Family Association, Focus on the Family, Moms for Liberty — and an Arizona-based nonprofit called Turning Point USA. The SPLC specifically <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SPLCenter/posts/at-the-forefront-of-the-movement-to-promote-christian-supremacy-is-turning-point/1116433363845757/">lambasted</a> TPUSA as ‘hard-right’ in June of 2025, and <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/turning-point-usa-case-study-hard-right-2024/">even</a> smeared them as part of the political Right’s alleged efforts to “enforce a social order rooted in white supremacy.” Let’s be clear: the SPLC isn’t giving you a hate list. This is a list of groups, ranging from true extremists to normal conservative groups, that the Southern Poverty Law Center would simply like you to believe are all hateful.
<div id="attachment_995255" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-995255" class="wp-image-995255 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/SPLC-hate-map-1024x534.jpg" alt="Screenshot: SPLC/Hate Map" width="1024" height="534" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/SPLC-hate-map-1024x534.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/SPLC-hate-map-300x156.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/SPLC-hate-map-768x401.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/SPLC-hate-map-1536x801.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/SPLC-hate-map.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>Screenshot: SPLC/Hate Map</div>
What matters right now is that some of America’s biggest companies have used the list to guide their corporate policies. Brands as big as Meta (Facebook), Alphabet (Google), and Amazon have used the SPLC’s Hate List for everything from writing their ‘hate speech’ policies to determining which charities they’ll support via employee philanthropy programs. In the SPLC’s eyes (a perspective granted legitimacy by some of the world’s most prominent brands), groups like Turning Point were indeed synonymous with hate.
It’s not about corporations approving of Charlie Kirk’s death (to my knowledge, that hasn’t happened). It’s about corporations enforcing bias, discriminating against conservative and Christian organizations, under the mistaken belief that this means stopping hate. If we are to move away from a society where people are shot for their political and religious views, this premise must be completely repudiated by America’s private sector. We have serious work to do.
And conservatives are <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/10/19/manufacturing-hate-conservatives-pressure-companies-drop-ties-splc/">spearheading</a> that work and using their influence to hold companies accountable for relying on the SPLC’s metrics.
This isn’t about politics, at the end of the day. It’s about getting back to business. It’s almost impossible for a company to claim to have a serious policy on combating “hate” when the organizations that define “hateful” think that the KKK and Turning Point USA belong in the same category. (This is perhaps most evident with companies like Etsy, which apparently has a problem with SPLC-deemed hate groups like TPUSA, <a href="https://www.etsy.com/legal/prohibited/">citing</a> the SPLC in their hate policies, but less of a problem with literal witches that used Etsy to <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/paid-etsy-witches-curse-charlie-124930762.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKyrSgpE_OwZ4ZR9-uaiwD15C8F7KUQ405vwpfm8CjcwAeChUfbh3bmjBTuc8iTlS74uYN3GdjWWsjSOo_gGO4Dw16hFSDCc3lCkWsbXSKy1gKoLh2Bpbh7lCm3xFwWgHkWF7b7nDllJwQMVulraHE_qktJz9S6stmmTzmYVYe-h">buy</a> an actual “hate” hex to put on Charlie Kirk shortly before he died. Because that’s not hate speech.)
As The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles recently <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzs6dy74Ew8">told</a> Congress, left-wing political violence is a serious threat to the marketplace of ideas in 2025. The Southern Poverty Law Center is only part of the problem. But, as the FBI cuts <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/10/03/breaking-kash-patels-fbi-cuts-all-ties-southern-poverty-law-center/">ties</a> with the SPLC, it’s time for America’s private sector to do the same. Corporate America didn’t get Charlie Kirk killed — a gunman who believed Kirk was spreading hate did. But it’s time to get serious about how organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center reflect the same poisonous idea: that conservatism and Christianity are hateful. We are seeing now that some people will take that framing and use it to rip the peaceful fabric of society apart.
The post-Charlie Kirk world isn’t one where we can afford to wallow. There’s work to be done. It’s time for us to take all the sadness and grief of this moment and channel it into culture-building energy — for Charlie, and for the country we all love. The SPLC, and a disturbing amount of the Left, would like you (and many of America’s biggest brands) to believe that mainstream conservative views are akin to hate. That idea doesn’t warrant any support in the ideas market. And the organizations that promote that idea don’t deserve to guide our capital markets.
The best time for corporate America to ditch the SPLC was years ago, before a 31-year-old husband and father lost his life after being smeared as part of a hate group. The second-best time is now.
* * *
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.

Raised Fist Hand Protest in flat icon design on red color ray background

How The Southern Poverty Law Center Poisoned Corporate America

Charlie Kirk

Conservatives

Corporations

Democrats

Hate Speech

Leftists

Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)

TPUSA

A Texas GOP official has suspended a statewide program that prioritized non-white male businesses in state contracting. 
Acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock <a href="https://comptroller.texas.gov/about/media-center/news/20251028-historically-underutilized-business-certification-process-under-review-by-acting-texas-comptroller-1761686774358">took action</a> this week to suspend new approvals for companies to be certified as a Historically Underutilized Business, giving them benefits in competing for state jobs. Hancock said that the program was constitutionally questionable because of its emphasis on race. 
“In Texas, we don&#8217;t want to discriminate against anybody, and what this program does is literally discriminate against those that are white,” Hancock told The Daily Wire. “It&#8217;s just been around for a long time, and we&#8217;ve just kind of accepted it and not looked at the constitutionality of it.”
To be defined as a Historically Underutilized Business, the company must be more than 50% owned by black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, Native Americans, service-disabled veterans, or women. The program has been in place since 1991. Hancock explained the requirements as “unless you’re white, you qualify.” 
Advantages of being classified as a Historically Underutilized Business include opportunities to bid for contracts from around 300 state agencies that must make a “good faith” effort to reach out to them. 
For example, the Texas Department of Agriculture has <a href="https://texasagriculture.gov/About/Contracting/Historically-Underutilized-Business-HUB">set goals</a> that aim for it to use so-called underutilized businesses for 11.2% of heavy construction jobs, 21.1% of building construction, 32.9% of special trade construction, 23.7% of professional service contracts, 26.6% of other service contracts, and 21.1% of commodities contracts. 
Currently, about 21% of Historically Underutilized Businesses participate in state contracts as prime contractors or subcontractors, receiving 11% of all state spending in total, according to the comptroller’s office. The total awards given to the businesses are over $4 billion, including $1.45 billion for women-owned businesses and $1.6 billion for Hispanic-owned businesses. 
Join us now during our exclusive Deal of the Decade. Get everything for $7 a month. Not as fans. As fighters. Go to <a href="http://dailywire.com/Subscribe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DailyWire.com/Subscribe</a> to join now.
Hancock said that he was concerned about the process of verifying that one had experienced economic discrimination. 
“How do we audit that somebody was economically discriminated against?” he asked. “How do we verify the information of somebody being economically discriminated against? It&#8217;s got to be more than just skin color.”
He said that contracts should be awarded on the basis of merit, not race or ethnicity. 
The suspension of the program comes after Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order prohibiting race and sex-based preferences when awarding government benefits.

Texas Governor Abbott Signs ERCOT Reforms Legislation Into Law

Billions On The Line: Texas Suspends DEI Program That Excluded White Males

'Unless You’re White, You Qualify': Texas Suspends Business Program Excluding White Males

Greg Abbott

Racial Discrimination

Texas

We are watching a tremendous political radicalization take place in the United States.
That radicalization has been most obvious on the Left, but there is a concomitant movement that is happening on the Right.
That splinter movement on the Right is being massaged by some of the people who have some sway in the conservative movement, at least in the commentariat.
It’s important to point out how one leads to the other, because that is the pattern in American politics. Politics generally is incredibly reactionary. People tend not to respond reasonably to provocations that are unreasonable, and they tend to swivel into their own unreasonable positions, and the pendulum swings back and forth.
It is a rarity to find a moment of clarity and reasonableness in American politics, even if the people who constitute the vast majority of the American body politic are normies.
Americans want a strong national defense, but they don&#8217;t want tremendous interventionism. Americans want a traditional value system, but not one that has the government snooping in their bedrooms. Americans want a system of laws that makes sure that there is a basic level of social safety net, but they do not want the government taking tremendous amounts of money away from them and regulating their businesses out of existence. 
That’s what polls show every single time. America is a very politically normie country. A Center-Right country is where you would place America on the map, if you were creating a spectrum of countries from far-Right to far-Left. 
And yet our politics right now seem to be revolving around the polls.
The reason it is revolving around the polls is because the Democratic Party has increasingly made it clear that there is a population they do not like: white Christian males. That is the population that must be targeted. 
It wasn’t always this way inside the Democratic Party. If you go back just about 20 years to the John Edwards campaign in 2004, you’ll find a socialistic-leaning campaign in terms of its economic policies. But the Edwards campaign certainly didn&#8217;t suggest that white Christian males were somehow bad.  In fact, Edwards would openly campaign as a person who was apparently religious (Of course, in his personal life, it turned out the man had many, many foibles).
I was a very strong opponent of John Edwards. But the Democratic Party has moved dramatically on just who they are targeting. That’s the reality, and it&#8217;s coming out in so many ways. It’s clearly evident.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2307-how-the-radical-left-created-the-horseshoe-theory-right?elementPosition=7&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
It&#8217;s self-evident in everything from the Mamdani candidacy, which is oriented against white Christian males, to the mainstream politicians in the Democratic Party. For example, yesterday Nancy Pelosi was giving a speech at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, and she started talking about Republicans and Christianity. Hilariously, she broke into a southern accent while she was doing it. 
Nancy Pelosi has true scorn for traditional biblical values. She considers herself a Catholic, but the reality is she does not hold any values in common with Catholicism, most certainly not on the social side. She&#8217;s a radical advocate for abortion, transgenderism, and same-sex marriage, all of which the church decries. Thus, she mocked Republicans and their relationship with religion, saying: 
<blockquote>“You know, people of faith who go to church on Sunday and pray in church on Sunday and prey on people the rest of the week. What is this? What is this?”</blockquote>
The scorn Nancy Pelosi has for religious conservatives who go to church on Sunday and disagree with her on politics has led to a massive backlash. 
The same thing is true in terms of race. The entire Democratic Party swiveled in favor of DEI, which was the idea that America is a systemically evil country that benefits white people and that any racial disparities in outcome must be attributable to a system that benefits white people at the expense of black and brown people. 
That led to a response in terms of policy that essentially targeted and disadvantaged white people. It also targeted minorities who were too successful, like Jews and Asians. 
The basic idea was that meritocracy was a guise for power, meritocracy was a lie, and that actually meritocracy was a system that benefited white people at the expense of all others. 
The Democratic Party repeated this ad nauseam. This is what the entire Black Lives Matter movement was really about, obfuscating the relationship between actions and consequences in favor of the idea that all shortcomings in life had to be due to a white supremacist system, and, therefore, white people had to be punished by the system.
And that triggered an identity-based response from a lot of young white men, particularly. 
This is the language of the Democratic Party: people of color are being targeted by white people; Christians are predators. People who are white are the oppressors. 
That is the basic matrix through which democratic politics has been refracted in the United States. That means that the coalition for the Democratic Party has been minorities, young people, and, in particular, young liberal white women. 
Why young liberal white women? Because they&#8217;re not young white Christian men. This is not just anti-Christian and anti-white, it also tends toward the anti-male. 
There&#8217;s a reason the Democratic Party has been losing young males hand over fist. They decided to feminize their party by attacking men as part of this evil superstructure. 
The final sort of peculiar outgrowth of the anti-male movement, of course, was transgenderism, which was the idea that there is no such thing as manhood. 
There&#8217;s been an overt attack on masculinity from the Left for several decades at this point, that if you let men be men, that will end with a discriminatory society that puts women underfoot, that men have nothing to offer to women at all, that the best types of men are the men who leave their masculinity behind. 
When you say that Christianity is inherently anti-LGBTQ, that it&#8217;s just a guise for discrimination. When you say that churches are bad, and when you say that white people are the cause of a white supremacist system, and that any disparate outcome is just evidence of innate white supremacy and innate white racism; when you say that maleness is driving America into the gutter and that we need to wipe away male supremacy even as males begin to underperform in college and commit suicide at higher and higher rates as they fall into depths of despair, you end up provoking a response.
And when you provoke responses, many of them tend to be untethered. Add on top of that the anti-Christian, anti-white, anti-male agenda that the Left has increasingly pushed. Also, add to that a pro-censorship agenda. That’s the idea that if you speak out against this stuff, you&#8217;re outside the Overton window, you’re at risk of being kicked out of every public space, kicked off of every public space for the great sin of saying that men are not women, or that the system is not white supremacist, and that maybe certain people are underperforming because they&#8217;re making bad decisions in their life.
The Democratic Party wants a restricted informational sphere so as to ensure that their way of viewing the world is the way that the world is viewed by everyone.
And then they added one more thing on top of that: an extraordinary amount of gaslighting.
If they say, “DEI is great and we should absolutely advantage people on the basis of their sex and their race,” and you then say, ”Maybe they&#8217;re not qualified,” they call you a racist. That&#8217;s the gaslighting. They say something. You repeat it back to them, and then they tell you the thing you&#8217;re saying is actually racist or bad. That sort of gaslighting is just typical now of an extraordinary part of the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party&#8217;s been playing with these forces for so long, it&#8217;s now too late for them to dissociate from those forces.
And all of it scares the hell out of a lot of Americans.
And it should because it is indeed radical stuff.
But as the Left has moved further to the left and embraced further radicalism as that has happened, you&#8217;ve seen an identitarian movement arise on the Right. 
If someone is opposed to Christianity and Christians because they&#8217;re “bad” and “terrible,” the normal response is to live Biblically, because the best disproof of that sort of slander is to live a Biblical lifestyle. Go to church; be good to your family; be good to your community; take care of people. The best response is to live well as a Christian. That is indeed the response of most Americans. 
When I was growing up, the response to the claim that America was a white supremacist country was to counter that America was a meritocracy. And meritocracy is good because meritocracy benefits everybody. That would be the normal response. 
The normal response to censorship is the Constitution. You want to censor? You can&#8217;t actually censor what I have to say, thanks to the government. 
Does that mean there aren&#8217;t social consequences for particularly egregious views? Of course not. That&#8217;s called normal life. You don&#8217;t have over the homeless schizophrenic for dinner who is screaming about the moon. You don’t invite the neo-Nazi who lives down the street over to have a nice chat with your kids, because those are views you don&#8217;t want in your home. 
That’s normal. That&#8217;s not cancellation. It&#8217;s not censorship. Censorship is a different thing. That is the normal response to being gaslit by people who are lying to you.
But in politics, the normal response is to smile very often. And people get frustrated. And because people are frustrated, what they tend to do is respond in kind. And this is how you end up with a horseshoe theory.
So if the Left says that white Christian males are the problem, the response winds up being that systems should only benefit white Christian males, not meritocracy. Meritocracy goes by the wayside because, after all, somebody has to win and somebody has to lose.
Thus, you&#8217;ve seen the rise of white identitarian politics. This is a fragment of the Right, not nearly the whole Right. It is not the mainstream on the Right. It is gaining increased traction on the Right, thanks to the apparent total inability of anybody on the Right to speak morally on these issues in a serious way.
Instead, there has been the attempt to massage this burgeoning feeling into a normality or legitimacy, the idea that if the Left is going to practice gaslighting and dishonesty, we too should practice gaslighting and dishonesty, that it doesn&#8217;t matter what we say as long as we achieve victory. Power is the only thing, and thus, calling other people out is now considered a form of censorship.
Criticizing a view is considered a form of censorship, which, of course, is really stupid. Criticism is not censorship. Stopping criticism, in fact, is a form of censorship. But the idea is that as long as you are on “my side,” it doesn&#8217;t matter what predations and idiocies you are spouting, as long as you are on “my side.”
Now the question becomes, what is “my side”? If I&#8217;m a person who responds with traditional Americanism to the idiocies, excesses and evils of the Left, with Biblical values, meritocracy and the Constitution, and if you say instead what we should respond with is a sort of pagan dishonesty, a DEI for white Christian males, discarding the Constitution in favor of a bizarre feeling of authoritarian tyranny, and I say, “You&#8217;re not on my side, clearly, we disagree about all the key issues,” then I get accused of “breaking the unity against the Left.”
But here&#8217;s the problem. If you agree with the Left by adopting this kind of identitarian politics, you just want a different class of people to benefit. How does that align with what most Americans want, and what that conservatism has historically stood for?
Unfortunately, this is the nature of our politics: reactionary politics.
The answer to the problem is to have a normie revolution, where people speak out in normal ways about the things that most Americans want, 80-20 issues. The vast majority of Americans believe in freedom of religion. The vast majority of Americans, even if they themselves do not go to church, believe that going to church is a generally good thing. The vast majority of Americans do not believe in governmental censorship, but they do believe in a certain sort of social standard whereby bizarre, outlandish, and evil views don&#8217;t necessarily receive a place at your dinner table.
Most Americans are very much in favor of meritocracy because that is a path forward for the entire civilization, and in fact, a path forward for those who work hard.
But if no one is going to articulate those principles, what you will end up with is a debate between the worst of the excesses on all sides, and people will just keep ping-ponging off each other. The pendulum will keep swinging wildly from side to side, and at no point will that 80% in the middle ever be receiving what they are asking for, which is just normality.
Americans have been begging for normality for at least 25 years in this country, begging for some semblance of a basic, normal life, and it&#8217;s not being given to them. 
If we keep going down this path, if we keep radicalizing and counter-radicalizing and radicalizing and counter-radicalizing, the middle won’t survive in America. 
And at that point, the things that I think most Americans care about, the things that I care about, the Constitution and meritocracy and freedom of religion and checks and balances of power and freedom of markets, all those things will go by the wayside because when the radicals predominate, it&#8217;s the normies who lose. 
At some point, the normies are going to have to stand up and say no.
Cooler heads and wiser heads are going to have to prevail.
* * *
Join us now during our exclusive Deal of the Decade. Get everything for $7 a month. Not as fans. As fighters. Go to <a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/">DailyWire.com/Subscribe</a> to join now.

American Social Unrest

The Rise Of Reactionary Politics And The Decline Of American Normalcy

anti-white

Ben Shapiro

Christians

male

Nancy Pelosi

White Supremacy

Whites

Young people

Zohran Mamdani

One of the largest insurance companies in the country is removing commitments to being “anti-racist” and other DEI-related materials from its website as it promises to embrace a culture of meritocracy. 
The Chubb Corporation has deleted or edited numerous webpages in recent weeks to remove information detailing multiple “racial justice” programs and its commitment to “inclusive hiring.” The changes come after The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/woke-insurance-ceo-said-bill-barring-men-from-womens-bathrooms-was-a-threat-to-democracy">reported</a> earlier this month on the scale of Chubb’s DEI initiatives and highly partisan comments from its CEO attacking North Carolina over a bill to keep men out of women’s bathrooms. 
Deleted webpages include one called “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250617162520/https:/about.chubb.com/our-workforce/racial-justice.html">Advancing Racial Justice</a>,” which detailed various “racial justice” programs at Chubb.
“We believe in being anti-racist because a rejection of racism alone is insufficient. We have a responsibility to do our part – with candor, open minds and a commitment to change,” the company said on the now-deleted page. The page included information on Chubb’s “Race Matters” platform, intended to “facilitate greater consciousness of racism and understanding of the Black experience,” and on “inclusive hiring” practices, which placed a “special emphasis on professionals from underrepresented groups.”
Asked to explain the changes, a spokesman for Chubb, the largest commercial lines insurer in the United States and operating across 54 countries, said they were made to ensure the website “better convey[s]” the company’s culture. 
“We have always strived to be a meritocracy. We made changes to the content on our website to better convey our culture,” a Chubb spokesman told The Daily Wire of the changes.
Many corporations have publicly moved away from DEI in recent years as customers have reacted negatively to corporate leftwing activism. Over the last month, Chubb has faced a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/woke-insurance-ceo-said-bill-barring-men-from-womens-bathrooms-was-a-threat-to-democracy">national campaign</a> from conservative groups like Consumers’ Research over some of the leftist policies it once highlighted on its website.  
A number of major corporations, like <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/john-deere-is-latest-company-to-diminish-dei-says-it-wont-join-social-or-cultural-awareness-parades">John Deere</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tractor-supply-reverses-course-backs-out-of-woke-initiatives-following-conservative-backlash">Tractor Supply</a>, have backed away from corporate DEI initiatives since the 2024 election.
Some pages were just edited to remove some information. On its “Rule of Law Fund” <a href="https://about.chubb.com/citizenship/rule-law-fund.html">page</a>, for example, Chubb <a href="https://archive.ph/CbRRA">removed</a> information about $1.1 million in donations it made, in part, to “understand and reduce racial inequities throughout the criminal justice process.” 
Join us now during our exclusive Deal of the Decade. Get everything for $7 a month. Not as fans. As fighters. Go to <a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DailyWire.com/Subscribe</a> to join now.
A video taken down from its YouTube page featured Chubb Corporation CEO Evan Greenberg <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/woke-insurance-ceo-said-bill-barring-men-from-womens-bathrooms-was-a-threat-to-democracy">attacking</a> North Carolina Republicans over a 2016 bill aimed at protecting women’s privacy.
“The rights of individuals, including our personal freedom and right to pursue happiness, are a universal right. We protect them. Actions like those in North Carolina and other states to discriminate against sexual preference and strip citizens of their protections, do not reflect who we are as a nation, and are ultimately, I believe, a threat to democracy,” Greenberg said.
A variety of other DEI-related pages were edited or removed from the webpage. 
This included information on its <a href="https://www.chubb.com/us-en/individuals-families/our-community/chubb-coal-policy.html">commitment</a> to no longer underwriting “the construction and operation of new coal-fired plants or new risks for companies that generate more than 30% of their revenues from coal mining or energy production from coal.”
Other information that was removed focused on programs <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250815185311/https:/about.chubb.com/our-workforce/advancing-women.html">specifically</a> for women, <a href="https://archive.ph/YVG04">its</a> Global Climate Business Unit, and <a href="https://archive.ph/KabAD#selection-2297.12-2297.106">sponsorship</a> of a DEI festival.
“In our journey to become a more equitable workplace, Chubb has developed a series of accelerator programs around the world designed for women at all stages of their career,” it said on a now-removed page on “Accelerating Opportunities for Women.”

In this photo illustration, the American insurance company

Insurance Giant Removes DEI Pages From Website, Commits To ‘Meritocracy’

Wokeness

Under War Secretary Pete Hegseth, America’s military is rediscovering its true mission of forging warriors, not social justice activists. He’s already purged divisive DEI and race-based admissions policies from our elite service academies, but one seemingly benign obstacle remains: academic accreditation. And like the wall on the training course, it must be overcome.
From West Point to the Air Force Academy, all five military service academies are accredited by a handful of private, unaccountable agencies with enormous influence over higher education. Unless the academies adopt these gatekeepers’ standards, their degrees may not be recognized when graduates pursue advanced degrees at civilian universities. That gives a handful of unelected, pro-DEI activists control over curriculum at schools founded to produce warfighters, including my alma mater, West Point.
That’s a serious problem.
West Point, established by Thomas Jefferson in 1802, along with the Naval Academy and the Merchant Marine Academy, are all accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which <a href="https://www.msche.org/standards/fourteenth-edition/">lists</a> “reflection on diversity, equity, and inclusion” among its “guiding principles.” That includes applying DEI to admissions targets, student assessments, and curriculum design. 
Never mind that the Supreme Court ruled race-based admissions unconstitutional in 2023, the commission insists that DEI reflection should “address disparate impacts on an increasingly diverse student population if discovered.” Its leadership reflects this far-left agenda, including commission president Heather Perfetti, a <a href="https://www.msche.org/president/">DEI champion</a>, and board members like Valerie Lehr, a professor of “LGBTQ politics” and author of Queer Family Values.
The Coast Guard Academy is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education, whose standards also reference DEI <a href="https://www.neche.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Standards-for-Accreditation-2021.pdf">at least five times</a>. While the commission is reportedly considering ditching DEI in October, it remains under the control of a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/01/10/169037364/300-college-presidents-call-for-guns-to-be-banned-on-campuses-other-steps">gun control extremist</a> who urged the Obama administration to ban “military-style assault weapons” and has praised the children of illegal aliens as embodiments of “<a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/opinion/opinion-dreamer-collegians-embody-america-promise/2PfaNiACsrc1EKNVTsWCNL/">America’s promise</a>.”
The same holds true for many of the military’s <a href="https://www.restorethemilitary.com/professional-military-education/">Professional Military Education institutions</a>, full of leftist ideologues and subject to the same diversity accreditation mandates.
It’s bad enough that these commissions push radical ideologies on civilian universities. But America cannot afford to waste resources indoctrinating the next generation of military officers, especially as <a href="https://restoration-news.com/is-america-prepared-for-a-war-with-china">China poses a rising threat</a>.
The military’s biggest problem isn’t meeting diversity quotas; it’s restoring a warrior ethos to military culture. For decades, political mandates imposed by Democratic presidents undermined unit cohesion and combat readiness, while leaving the U.S. military dependent on foreign manufacturing to supply critical equipment. 
The organization I lead, Restoration of America, has laid out a blueprint for reenvisioning the military at <a href="https://www.restorethemilitary.com/">RestoretheMilitary.com</a>. It includes legislative solutions for reforming our service academies.
Fortunately, President Trump is turning things around. Under his direction, the War Department is reinstating physical fitness standards. He’s also removing woke senior officers, such as Merchant Marine Academy Superintendent Joanne Nunan, an <a href="https://restoration-news.com/exclusive-service-academy-s-woke-leadership-removed">anti-Christian bigot</a> he fired in June. In July, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll <a href="https://restoration-news.com/west-point-leadership-thumbs-its-nose-at-the-trump-administration">blocked</a> the West Point superintendent from hiring Biden’s “disinformation” czar to head the Social Studies Department.
These are major victories that should be celebrated, but we cannot rest on our laurels.
The next logical step is removing all outside influence over academy curricula by withdrawing the academies from these accreditors. The service academies should either be accredited by a new War Department accrediting body or accreditation should be eliminated altogether. Accreditation exists to prevent fraudsters from issuing worthless degrees from a phony “college,” and to ensure that students know the basics.
West Point, Annapolis, and the others have nothing to prove. They’ve demonstrated their excellence on the battlefield, time and again. It’s time to let them make warriors, not quotas.
* * *
Doug Truax is a West Point graduate, former 4th Infantry Division Army Captain, Ranger, and successful entrepreneur. He is the volunteer, unpaid founder, and CEO of <a href="http://www.restorationofamerica.com">Restoration of America</a>.
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/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=fall40&amp;utm_content=fallsale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial">Get 40% off new DailyWire+ annual memberships with code FALL40 at checkout!</a>

Washington DC Celebrates Army’s 250th Anniversary With Parade And Festivities

Social Justice Warriors Shouldn’t Control West Point

Social Justice Warriors Shouldn't Control West Point

LGBTQ

Social Justice

U.S. Military

West Point

Woke Culture

The Trump administration is freezing $2.1 billion in funding for Chicago infrastructure projects over accusations of “race-based contracting” as the government shutdown continues. 
Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought announced the move Friday morning, saying that the freeze would impact construction to modernize the city’s public transit system. It comes just two days after the Department of Transportation <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-freezes-18-billion-for-nyc-infrastructure-over-unconstitutional-dei-principles?author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Freezes+%2418+Billion+For+NYC+Infrastructure+Over+%E2%80%98Unconstitutional+DEI+Principles%E2%80%99">froze</a> $18 billion for New York City infrastructure projects over “unconstitutional” diversity, equity, and inclusion “principles.”
“$2.1 billion in Chicago infrastructure projects — specifically the Red Line Extension and the Red and Purple Modernization Project — have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting,” Vought wrote on X. 
Shortly after Vought’s announcement, the Department of Transportation <a href="https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/us-department-transportation-statement-review-chicagos-discriminatory">confirmed</a> the freeze and suggested that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) were to blame for leading the Democrats’ resistance to a temporary government funding bill. 
The department said that it was “committed to conducting these reviews as fast as possible so reimbursements can move forward. Unfortunately, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries’ decision to shut down the government has negatively affected the Department’s staffing resources for carrying out this important analysis.”
“We urge Democrats in Congress to stop holding the federal government’s budget hostage so USDOT can get back to the important work of the American people,” the department added. 
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=fall40&amp;utm_content=fallsale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Get 40% off new DailyWire+ annual memberships with code FALL40 at checkout</a>
It sent letters on Friday to the Chicago Transit Authority, stating that it had initiated an administrative review of two ongoing projects to modernize the city’s rail system, and added that it was concerned about preferential treatment in construction contracting based on race. 
“Together, these critical reviews are intended to ensure no additional federal dollars go towards discriminatory, illegal, and wasteful contracting practices,” the department said. “The American people don’t care what race or gender construction workers, pipefitters, or electricians are. They just want these massive projects finally built quickly and efficiently.”
President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-meeting-set-to-axe-democrat-agencies?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=4&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump%3A+Meeting+Set+To+Axe+‘Democrat+Agencies’">has urged</a> Republicans to take advantage of the shutdown to cut “Democrat Agencies” and eliminate wasteful spending. 
“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday. 
The White House has tasked Vought with reviewing the federal bureaucracy amid the shutdown and identifying areas for spending cuts.

MixCollage-03-Oct-2025-10-22-AM-1097

Blue City Blues: Another Democrat-Run Stronghold Gets Infrastructure Funding Frozen

Blue City Blues: Another Democrat-Run Stronghold Gets Infrastructure Funding Frozen Amid Shutdown

Chicago

Chuck Schumer

Department of Transportation

Economy

Government Shutdown

Hakeem Jeffries

Illinois

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Politics

Russ Vought

The Secretary of War and the President of the United States spoke before hundreds of top U.S. military leaders on Tuesday.
This event had been touted for a few days in advance. The idea was to have all the top U.S. military brass gather at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia. 
There was a lot of speculation about the meeting. Was it going to be an announcement about Ukraine? Or China? Or was it going to be about Venezuela?
It turns out, it was going to be a speech from Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, and a speech from the President of the United States, about recalibrating our military approach, particularly internally.
Pete Hegseth has spoken about this a lot over the past few years. I recorded an episode of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhVMY0AxZd0">Sunday Special</a> with Pete Hegseth about a year ago. He had a new book out, “The War on Warriors,” in which he wrote about wokeness in the military, lowered standards in the military, and the fact that more militaries around the world were not fearing us as much because we had implemented all of these left-wing ideologies within the military. This has legitimately been a big bugaboo of Hegseth’s for years.
Well, now he has the opportunity to change all of that because, of course, he sits atop the Department of War.
The event, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/09/30/hegseth-military-meeting-trump-generals/">The Washington Post</a>, was organized by Hegseth&#8217;s team at the Pentagon. He summoned generals and admirals from command posts throughout the world to Virginia.
General Dan Caine, Trump&#8217;s hand-selected Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told attendees in his opening comments that the event was an unprecedented opportunity, and an honor for assembled senior officers and their top enlisted advisers to hear directly from the military civilian leadership. 
Hegseth was going after wokeness in the military again, and he railed against what he called “Fat dudes and men in dresses.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2290-warfighters-hegseth-trump-launch-assault-on-woke-military"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-974957 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
So, optically, yes, I understand the Left being very, very upset about it. But it happens to be something that the American people agree with, along with the people who enlist in our military. Journalists around the nation are very, very upset about what Pete Hegseth did yesterday because they believe the military should be a place for social engineering, as opposed to a place for warfighters.
Well, Secretary Hegseth was a grunt. He&#8217;s a person who served in the trenches, and on the front lines. And that means he is significantly more in touch with the feelings of people who actually serve in the military, than certainly the people in the world of journalism — and truthfully, more than many of these sorts of political generals who have spent the last 40 years rising in the ranks.
Which means that recalibrating along those lines is actually not a bad thing at all.
As Secretary Hegseth <a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/defense-secretary-hegseth-addresses-senior-military-leaders/666410">said yesterday</a>:
<blockquote>Frankly, it&#8217;s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it&#8217;s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It&#8217;s a bad look. It is bad. And it&#8217;s not who we are. So, whether you&#8217;re an Airborne Ranger or a “Chairborne Ranger,” a brand new private, or a four star general, you need to meet the height and weight standards and pass the PT test.</blockquote>
This, apparently, was very upsetting to folks. 
He also went after what he called “Dudes in dresses,” which was a specific reference to the fact that under the Biden administration, there were legitimate videos of troops doing drag as an attempt to drive people into the military. I can&#8217;t think of anything that would drive the types of young men who want to join the military away from the military more than men in drag.
Honestly, that does not seem like a recruiting pitch for the U.S. military. And you can see it in the numbers. The Biden administration was having a very, very difficult time fulfilling its recruiting quotas. From literally the minute Pete Hegseth was announced as Secretary of Defense, those numbers began to rise.
Hegseth then <a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/defense-secretary-hegseth-addresses-senior-military-leaders/666410">said</a>: 
<blockquote>This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department, to rip out the politics. No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions. No more debris. As I&#8217;ve said before and will say again, we are done with that sh**.</blockquote>
People are apparently angry about this. And there&#8217;s also a fair bit of gaslighting going on here. 
So the way that this works is that when the Left takes over an institution, they skew that institution. And then, when somebody who is not on the Left takes over the institution and says, “We&#8217;re going to unskew it,” the Left then says, “How dare you do this? How dare you politicize?”
They do this with so many institutions in American life. For example, take higher education, a domain once designed to actually create better American citizens, people who are supposed to be in touch with their civilization. They took an institution that was supposed to be at least titularly nonpartisan and made it highly partisan in favor of the Left.
And then people get into power who are not on the Left. And they say, &#8220;Let&#8217;s shift it back. Let&#8217;s shift it back toward the center.&#8221; And the Left says, “How dare you touch our hallowed institutions? How dare you attempt to change the underlying politics of that institution?”
The same thing in the military. There is an attempt by the Left to hijack the military and use it for a wide variety of social engineering causes, ranging from climate change to DEI to gender identity.
And now, when the Right takes over and says, “Hey, we&#8217;re not going to do any of that stuff, we&#8217;re actually going to go back to the status quo where the military was about winning wars,” the Left responds, “How dare you? How dare you politicize? How dare you intervene? How dare you get involved in politics?” This is an exercise in gaslighting.
The Left is perfectly willing to gut these institutions and wear their faces around like a mask from “The Silence of the Lambs.” But the minute the Right says, “Let&#8217;s restore those institutions to what they were before,” the Left then claims politicization.
It’s nonsense.

President Trump And Pete Hegseth Address U.S. Senior Military Leaders At Quantico

Hegseth To Top Military Brass: No More Dudes In Dresses

American General

Department of War

Pentagon

Pete Hegseth

Washington D.C.

The retirement savings of millions of federal workers are being weaponized to push climate change and DEI mandates, a watchdog warned lawmakers. 
Financial asset giants BlackRock and State Street are leveraging their management over billions of dollars in federal employees’ retirement savings to push left-wing politics, according to a Monday <a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Hild-Letter-to-SCHSGA-and-HCOGR-RE-TSP.pdf">letter</a> to top Republican lawmakers from Consumers’ Research obtained by The Daily Wire. The pair manages around $668 billion in federal retirement savings through the Thrift Savings Plan, the federal government’s version of a 401(k) plan. 
“Asset managers like BlackRock using Americans’ hard-earned money to unfairly and illegally push radical political agendas without consent is hardly a new problem, but their control of most of the Thrift Savings Plan takes the scandal to a new level,” Consumers’ Research executive director Will Hild told The Daily Wire. “Flagrantly violating fiduciary duty with federal employee dollars begs for congressional scrutiny and more.”
<a class="c-link" href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=fall40&amp;utm_content=fallsale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=fall40&amp;utm_content=fallsale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial" data-sk="tooltip_parent">Get 40% off new DailyWire+ annual memberships with code FALL40 at checkout!</a>
The letter was sent to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chair James Comer (R-KY) and Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chair Rand Paul (R-KY). It requested that the lawmakers investigate the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB), the agency that administers the Thrift Savings Plan program. 
The letter says that the agency “has contracted with asset managers and proxy advisors that have pursued goals to impose emissions reductions and diversity quotas on companies, rather than focus solely on financial returns as required” by federal law. 
“Examples of BlackRock’s and State Street’s harmful conduct include: (1) using proxy voting power to push companies to adopt emissions targets; (2) maintaining commitments to climate-activist organizations in pursuit of Paris Agreement goals; (3) using internal proxy-voting guidelines that require using engagement and voting to pressure companies to align with net zero; (4) using pension fund assets to advance a net-zero agenda; and (5) succumbing to activist pressure to join climate groups and change their proxy voting to support activist proposals,” Hild wrote in the letter. 
An example of political policies being pushed by BlackRock included <a href="https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/literature/publication/annual-stewardship-report-2024.pdf">voting</a> in 2024 for a shareholder proposal to require Cracker Barrel to establish and publish greenhouse gas emissions targets. It backed similar proposals for companies like Jack in the Box, Wingstop, and Denny’s. 
Hild cited previous <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20241226122512/https:/www.ssga.com/library-content/assets/pdf/global/asset-stewardship/proxy-voting-and-engagement-policy.pdf">policies</a> by State Street to generally oppose company boards that are not “composed of at least 30-percent female directors” and “at least one director from an underrepresented racial/ethnic community.”
In recent years, BlackRock has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/blackrock-makes-major-change-after-backlash-against-woke-investing">backed away</a> from some of its more recent pushes for activist investing after widespread backlash. In April 2024, the Committee to Unleash Prosperity gave BlackRock a &#8220;B&#8221; for its voting record on &#8220;extreme&#8221; shareholder proposals, up from a &#8220;C&#8221; the previous year. The same report grades State Street as a &#8220;C.&#8221;
&#8220;BlackRock’s CEO, Larry Fink, had been one of the leading voices in support of ESG a few years ago. But last year, under pressure from groups like ours and others, he began to retreat from its ESG advocacy on proxy voting as shareholder proposals have become more extreme,&#8221; the report found.
BlackRock&#8217;s recent global voting <a href="https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/literature/publication/2025-investment-stewardship-voting-spotlight.pdf">spotlight</a> also highlighted that it voted with corporate management on 209 out of 214 votes in the Americas on climate and natural capital. &#8220;We again found that many of these proposals were over-reaching, lacked economic merit, or sought outcomes that were unlikely to promote long-term financial value,&#8221; the report said.
The letter also states that the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board relies on the Institutional Shareholder Services, a proxy advisory firm, for analysis of BlackRock and State Street’s proxy voting record. The firm is also “committed to environmental activism and imposing quotas on company boards,” Hild wrote. 
The agency utilizes quarterly analysis from the Institutional Shareholder Services to ensure that BlackRock and State Street vote in line with their written guidelines. 
“Reliance on ISS is contrary to [federal law’s] sole-interest standard, as ISS pursues an agenda that is incompatible with shareholder value and has made commitments to incorporate ESG into its processes. Contracting with ISS also raises concerns about ISS’s role in recommending votes that would inject race- and sex-based considerations into companies’ practices, which potentially violates federal and state civil rights laws,” Hild wrote. 
Hild wants Congress to press the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board to ensure that federal workers’ retirement savings are not being used to push politics. 
“The [FRTIB] owes the public answers, starting with whether it broke the law by allowing these notoriously woke firms to fund their ESG activism with millions of federal workers&#8217; savings. The longer that firms like BlackRock freely manage Thrift Saving Plan assets, the greater the danger to so many Americans&#8217; retirement security,” he said.

MixCollage-29-Sep-2025-11-26-AM-2253

Federal Retirement Dollars Used To Push Leftist Politics, Watchdog Warns

BlackRock

James Comer

Rand Paul

Menu