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Are We Seeing the End of the Corporate Wokeness Trend?

AP Photo/Richard Drew

It's just not working for businesses. For years, corporations have embraced political correctness in order to better navigate societal trends and change with the times. Adopting aspects of what's in is a natural business practice that even churches tend to embrace in order to keep up relevancy, especially with the youth. 

However, at some point, the future businesspeople of America who were trained to believe in radical leftist causes by our universities went forth into the corporate world and began convincing CEOs and board members of corporations that the new political correctness was nestled in radical leftism. Corporations had to embrace ideas such as transgenderism, leftist environmental practices, feminist stances, and divisive racial matters in order to be accepted by today's society. 

This festered within the heart of the global corporate atmosphere, eventually solidifying into Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) policies laid down by investment firms in order for corporations to continue being on all the right stock lists and getting good investment deals. 

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink openly told everyone that he was into "forcing behaviors," and while he was talking about implementing these leftist ideals at his own company, you can clearly see how BlackRock was forcing behaviors at companies they owned majority stocks in. 

Companies left and right began adopting these leftist practices in an attempt to stay relevant. Focuses on diversity and inclusivity popped up and corporations created departments within their own companies that policed it. They ceased hiring people based on merit or talent, instead focusing more on their skin tone or what they had between their legs. Men, especially white men, became villains that either needed to be rejected or needed to live in some sort of consistently apologetic state. The LGBT activist community became an entity you defied at great risk. 

Then the collapse began. 

Bud Light, Target, Victoria's Secret, Disney, Dick's Sporting Goods, DC Comics, Gillette Razors, and even various YouTube Channels that embraced wokeness began to decline, some far worse than others. 

While some companies won't admit they're crashing and burning, others have recognized the mistake and are attempting to course-correct. 

As I reported on Wednesday, the lingerie company Victoria's Secret has taken too much of a financial blow thanks to its embrace of woke culture and will now revert back to what it was before, a company that focuses on giving women high-quality underwear and clothing that has sex appeal. 

Disney CEO Bob Iger has recognized that plunging Disney into the culture war and angering conservatives (in actuality, he angered parents) was a mistake, and he's now attempting to steer the company back toward being the apolitical family-friendly company of old, though there are serious doubts that he'll be able to accomplish that at this point. 

(READ: No Mercy for Disney or Bob Iger)

Others have quietly stepped away from woke culture. Gillette released an incredibly insulting ad telling men that their very nature was problematic, resulting in billions of dollars lost as their customer base went elsewhere. 

The same could be said of Bud Light, which partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, resulting in a backlash from customers and a powerful boycott that has cost the company billions of dollars and the goodwill of Americans. 

While neither Gillette nor Bud Light has walked back their decisions publicly, both seemed to have quietly changed their ad strategies and are releasing unmemorable, inoffensive ads. 

But the cherry on the cake is BlackRock's Fink, who, just last June, admitted that the ESG approach to business isn't going well. The fight over ESG resulted in multiple states pulling their assets from BlackRock. Fink believes that ESG has gotten such a bad rap and that a rebranding was necessary. It's still unclear what kind of rebranding he has in mind, but the problem isn't the name; it's the practice. 

Either way, it would appear that there's a turning point occurring in corporate culture. While it's still infesting the heart of corporate America, we are perhaps seeing a slow departure that could inevitably lead to a more apolitical era. 

The key is for customers to keep doing what they're doing and reject it both with their wallets and their mouths. The fight against the leftist political intrusion into everyday life isn't going to stop. That kind of radicalism never rests; it just regroups and thinks up a different strategy. 

Keep up the pressure. 

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