Americans want corporations to drop their “woke” agendas and get back to focusing on their business, a new survey has revealed.
Companies across the country are gearing up for an economic downturn by cutting costs and staff.
However, CEOs might want to heed the rising voice of consumers who want them to focus on business rather than politics.
According to a poll this week of more than 1,000 likely voters by the Trafalgar Group and Convention of States Action (COSA), nearly 80 percent said that, given the choice, they are more likely to buy from a company that is politically neutral.
In a rare case of bipartisan consensus, both Democrats (76.9 percent) and Republicans (78.8 percent) felt this way in roughly equal measure.
Disney has become a cautionary tale for CEOs after becoming a left-wing political advocate in recent years.
The once-loved family brand has been introducing sexual content and a “not-at-all-secret-gay-agenda” into children’s programs.
It has also been promoting critical race theory (CRT) and demanding reparations through shows like “The Proud Family.”
The company started a battle it couldn’t win by fighting a parents’ rights law in Florida that bans sexual topics in public schools for kids in third grade or younger.
This has been off-putting for some Disney customers, and the company’s share price has been hammered by shortfalls in subscribers to the Disney+ Channel.
Claims of a hostile work environment by conservative staffers and retaliatory actions by the state of Florida to revoke the privileged status of Disney’s main theme park near Orlando have weighed heavily on the company’s value.
In response to pressure from investors like Nelson Pelz, who demanded that Disney improve its financial performance, the company fired CEO Bob Chapek, who initiated the fight with Florida.
The company has also just announced a corporate reorganization that will include laying off 7,000 employees and cutting more than $5 billion in costs.
Corporate cost-cutting will likely take a toll on corporate politicization, hitting HR departments and diversity-equity-and-inclusion (DEI) executives, who are becoming increasingly unaffordable.
A January report in Bloomberg stated that listings for DEI jobs were down 19 percent last year, a greater decline than in legal or HR departments in general.
This follows a dramatic expansion in DEI hiring after the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
Adding to this are claims by laid-off diversity workers at Meta that they received eight weeks of severance pay, while most employees who were let go got 16 weeks.
The diversity employees were part of Meta’s newly created Sourcer Development Program, designed to recruit minority employees.
Corporate executives may be seeing ideological pursuits as an increasingly unaffordable luxury.
According to a 2022 survey by KPMG, a management consultancy, half of the CEOs polled stated that they were putting their ESG plans on hold because of the current business environment.
And in addition to consumers, investors seem also to want companies to focus on business over politics.
A 2022 survey by Consumers’ Research of 2,000 retail investors found that 70 percent of them said their primary goal is to save for retirement or generate income, versus 3 percent who invested for ESG goals like fighting climate change or social justice.
Despite this, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) moved in March 2022 to implement a new requirement that all listed companies produce annual audited reports on the carbon emissions of their company and all suppliers and customers, as well as a plan to reduce them.
The SEC, established to protect small investors from securities fraud, claimed as justification that investors were demanding this information.
However, the investors who support the SEC rule appear to be large institutional asset managers and progressive state pension fund managers rather than the people who depend on those investments to fund their retirement.
COSA, which co-sponsored the consumer survey, is an organization that is working to organize a convention of states, according to a provision in the Constitution that allows amendments to be written by a coalition of three-quarters of U.S. states.
This movement seeks to rein in the power of the federal government through provisions like term limits for Congress and federal officials, budget caps, and other provisions to de-centralize America’s political system and return more power to state governments.
Currently, 19 states have fully approved legislation calling for a convention of states, seven states have approved the measure in one legislative chamber, and 11 states are considering legislation this year.
READ MORE: Elon Musk: ‘Woke’ ESG Pushed by World Economic Forum Is ‘Satanic’
