Go Woke Go Broke – (But Not the CEO)
The Woke Left doesn’t like much about America and the 2nd Amendment probably heads its enemies list. You may enjoy a few stories about how the Woke left is faring in its war on all things American.
In February 2020, Bob Chapek became the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Walt Disney Company.
In March of 2022, Florida’s legislature passed the Parental Rights in Education legislation, which prohibits Florida’s schools from providing instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity issues to students in kindergarten through the third grade.
Chapek was originally silent on the bill, which made his LGBTQ employees unhappy. So, Chapek apologized and the company came out with a tweet saying that it would work to repeal the legislation or strike it down in the courts. The LGBTQ employees were less unhappy – but definitely not happy - as Chapek was seen as an untrustworthy flip flopper who did not have true allegiance to LGBTQ.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis denounced Disney as “woke” and accused it of trying to inject “California values” into his state and coordinated legislation that revoked the special tax district status that Disney enjoyed in Florida since 1967. This will cost Disney billions of dollars.
Two dozen members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Republican Study Commission voiced opposition to allowing Disney to renew its copyright on Mickey Mouse in 2024, based on what they called the company’s "political and sexual agenda." (The copyright would long ago have expired without legislation to continue it.)
Peter Rice, who served as Disney’s Chairman of Entertainment and Programming, led the fight against Governor DeSantis. Rice was unexpectedly fired, recently, which reportedly stunned "woke" staffers.
Under Chapek, Disney opened a new theme park in China. Apparently, China’s attitude toward the Uyghur genocide doesn’t bother Disney’s LGBTQ employees.
Disney is also pushing critical race theory on employees through a new plan called “Reimagine Tomorrow,” urging workers to recognize their “white privilege.” Staffers are told to reflect on America’s “racist infrastructure” and “think carefully about whether or not [their] wealth” is derived from racism.
Disney had earlier planned to move 2,000 employees from California to Florida in 2023. That has been delayed until 2026, which will cost Disney millions. Many of those employees who were being transferred were unhappy to leave LGBTQ friendly California for Florida and are now unhappy to be left in limbo – otherwise known as California.
In March 2020, because of Covid, Chapek laid off approximately 28,000 employees while enacting pay cuts for the company’s senior executives. But in August 2020, he fully restored the executives’ pay while the employees were still furloughed. Chapek’s pay is reported to be $32 million this year.
Disney just released the new children’s movie Buzz Lightyear and its Woke employees are elated that the cartoon includes a lesbian kiss. The movie is projected to need a $600 to $700 million box office to break even and fell well short of expectations in its opening weekend.
Disney’s stock price has dropped from $183 to $94 in the past year.
On another front:
Gannett, America’s largest newspaper chain, publishes the far-left USA Today along with 250-plus local papers. It is cutting back on telling its readers what to think.
“Readers don’t want us to tell them what to think,” said the Gannett editors, according to the far-left Washington Post . “They don’t believe we have the expertise to tell anyone what to think on most issues. They perceive us as having a biased agenda.”
A biased agenda! Oh, say it aint so! So, Gannett said it aint so – they said it’s the readers’ fault.
The editorial committee blamed the readers for not knowing the difference between the editorial and news sections: “Today’s contemporary audiences frequently are unable to distinguish between objective news reporting and Opinion content.”
A few examples of editorials confused by Gannett – but not by the readers - as being objective news: “Inflation is transitory,” “Trump colluded with Russia,” “Jussie Smollett is a victim,” “Trump will never be president,” “Biden is a moderate,” and “Things will go back to normal with Trump gone and the adults back in charge?”
According to the Washington Post, Gannett lost $135 million last year. Their stock price dropped from $18.86 to $3.08 over the past 5 years. (That’s not a drop that’s entering an abyss!)
And if that isn’t enough:
The Kellogg Company announced that it was breaking itself up into three companies: a cereal business, a plant-based food business, and a snack business. The company now says that its basic structure is unworkable. Management hopes that the parts might be worth more than the sum.
The chief executive is going with the growing snack business rather than staying with the cereal business that management helped destroy.
Kellogg did real damage to its brands when it decided to take sides in American politics by boycotting Breitbart. Declaring that Breitbart - and by extension the entire center-right in America - did not conform to Kellogg’s values. Tony the Tiger became the self-declared opponent of Americans who preferred Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton.
The company had long been suspected of being controlled by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the far-left social justice operation that is its largest shareholder The wealthy radical leftwing foundation agitates for open borders, supports George Soros’ Open Society Institute, and pushes a host of leftwing causes.
Perhaps the smaller descendants of Kellogg will be a bit less eager to include culture wars in its basic structure.
Shares had peaked in April of 2016 just short of $82, then dropped to $56 in 2019 and traded in the low $60’s until it just “jumped” to $67.
