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Starbuck claims more wins over DEI in workplace, plans more

by Will Tubbs

Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News

To the extent that most people know Robby Starbuck, it’s as the TikToker with slicked-back hair who rails against wokeism in American workplaces while racking up virtual and real-world wins as company-after-company distances itself from DEI. 

Conservatives routinely hale Starbuck, who in a previous career directed music videos for the likes of Smashing Pumpkins and the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, as a skillful activist affecting change. 

Progressives have reacted to Starbuck with an odd mixture of anger and dismissiveness. Depending on who you ask on the left, Starbuck is either the progenitor of evil or ineffectual. 

He’s both troll to the left and treasure to the right, but who is Robby Starbuck and what effect is he having on American business? Of equal importance, what does he have planned next? 

MAKING SENSE OF STARBUCK

As is so often the case, the truth about Starbuck lies between two oft-overstated positions. He is neither as powerful nor ineffectual as the right or left pretend. 

Starbuck can best be understood through the overused metaphor of America engaging in a culture war. 

If the nation is engaged in such a conflict, Starbuck amounts to an officer in the ranks of the right, less a general and more the leader of a cavalry sent to raid the lands of the opposition. 

Back when such men rode into battle on horseback, the exploits of such cavalry officers were not likely to turn the tide of war, but they were certain to draw attention. The value of the raider is found as much in his ability to embarrass and annoy the opposition as it is in his ability to overwhelm. 

In the case of Starbuck, the wins have been in the form of well-known companies, each faced with loss of profit or face, issuing statements affirming that they do not or no longer will push policies that align too closely to the political left. 

John Deere, Tractor Supply, Harley Davidson, Jack Daniels, and Lowe’s have all had their turn under the social media spotlight Starbuck wields as a cudgel. And in each case, the company has done something to satiate Starbuck and his audience. 

The most recent example was the Ford Motor Company, which on Wednesday, announced it was moving away from DEI initiatives and diversity quotas as well as removing itself from the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index

“This isn’t everything we want but it’s a great start,” Starbuck wrote on X. “We’re now forcing multi-billion dollar organizations to change their policies without even posting just from fear they have of being the next company that we expose. We will continue to communicate with our sources in companies we expose and report on any that step out of line. I can promise that if we have to do a second report, it will be much more aggressive.”

To say that the Human Rights Campaign – whose X bio reads, “We’re America’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization. We proudly fight for a world where equality wins at home, school, work, and every community” – was displeased with Ford’s announcement would be an understatement. 

The organization called Ford executives cowards and Starbuck several unflattering things. 

“Today, @Ford ABANDONED its values and commitments to an inclusive workplace, cowering to MAGA weirdo Robby Starbuck,” a statement from the organization on X reads. “With the LGBTQ+ community wielding $1.4 TRILLION in spending power and 30% of Gen Z identifying as LGBTQ+, we won’t forget this shortsighted decision and its impact.

If the insults bothered Starbuck, he didn’t let on. 

His response on X read, “Hilarious. Sorry @HRC but your spending power is nothing compared to conservatives who buy Ford trucks. Literally nothing. You have no sizable public support which is why your people won’t debate me. Your influence in corporate America was a house of cards and I pushed the first card to topple it. Your support comes from woke government, globalist elites, gender studies professors and college Marxists. My support comes from everyday [working-class] people who make our country run [every day].”

GAUGING THE STARBUCK EFFECT

There’s more to Starbuck and his movement than merely agitating companies. In many ways, Starbuck’s crusade against progressive dogma in the workplace is a case study of the tactical use of social media and consumer spending power to get acquiescence from deliberately chosen targets. 

Starbuck makes no secret that he looks for companies that cater, whether by choice or tradition, to a largely conservative market base. However, not all experts agree that Starbuck is having the impact he and his fans suggest. 

FISM News has reported extensively about corporate America trending toward the center in its initiatives. DEI investment funds are not as flush with resources as they once were. 

Going all-in on social equity is not a magic formula that automatically drives in dollars, so companies are already easing away. 

Starbuck might be the force that moves them in that direction substantially quicker, but he is not the only factor in play. 

This week, New York Magazine ran an article by Kevin T. Dugan under the headline “The Right-Wing Crusade Against DEI Isn’t Actually Working.” 

Despite the terse headline, Dugan offers a mathematical defense of the position. Essentially, Dugan argues that Starbuck is dealing with companies that are already not as woke as he claims and that are making minimal changes. 

“Ford’s biggest change, for instance, amounted to a change in its ‘employee resource groups’ for underrepresented groups, which will now be open to all employees,” Dugan writes. “At Jack Daniels, the changes may be even smaller. Starbuck claims that the liquor company changed how it gave out bonuses, trained employees in diversity, and worked with diverse suppliers after his crusade. But the actual wording from the company says nothing like that — it’s just mushy corporate-ese that makes vague promises to change ‘ambitions’ and ‘ensure’ that bonuses are tied to business performance.”

Starbuck argues that what you are seeing is a movement, one that comes from the people. In a sense, Starbuck isn’t as interested in the degree to which he is winning – although, he certainly is firm in his belief that he is affecting meaningful change – as he is pleased to see momentum swinging toward the right. 

It’s an irony that, after years of left-leaning and progressive activists using social media as a tool to force companies and institutions to the left, a conservative is now harnessing the same power to move them in the opposite direction. 

“This isn’t just me shattering corporate DEI policies,” The Tennessee Star quoted Starbuck as saying. “This is millions of people getting involved, and I think that’s the magic of it…It’s like a war. Once you start winning every battle against armies that everybody says you couldn’t possibly win against, it emboldens your own army. It emboldens the people…The more you win, the more people join the cause.”

WHAT’S NEXT FOR STARBUCK?

The simplest answer is more of the same. While the left and right might squabble over the degree, no one can dispute that Starbuck has some effect. 

This week, the Tennessee Star reported that Starbuck said he had more than a thousand whistleblowers from various companies. 

“We’re working hard to just inject sanity back into the conversation,” The Tennessee Star quoted Starbuck as saying. “I think a big reason why it’s been so successful is because I’m not asking these companies to adopt my politics, and I think that if I was, we probably wouldn’t be having the success that we’re having. Instead, I’m saying, ‘Look, let’s just have work be work again.’ We have plenty of places in this country to fight about political issues and divisive social issues and things along those lines, but I think people just want to go to work, be able to do their job and not have politics or social issues shoved down their throat.”

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