Pride Month, a month-long “celebration” contrived to promote every conceivable sexual behavior, orientation, and identity (except the one on which families are built), has yet to officially begin as of this writing. And yet it has already been the subject of multiple, destructive and divisive corporate promotions which bypass the offering of the company to directly promote LGBTQIA+ lifestyles and ideology.   

Target has lost $ 9 billion to the boycott provoked by, among other things, their promotion of “tuck-friendly” garments for young boys. It has many asking how, in light of the crashing sales of Bud Light, could Target have so miscalculated the market for “Pride” merchandise?

Did Target guess that encouraging parents to penis-shame their little boys would be a popular idea? 

Did Target executives assume that the middle-class suburban families that comprise the largest part of their market would welcome a month of this type of messaging directed at their kids?

The answers to these questions, of course, are “no”, and “no”.

This was no error, no miscalculation. It was a calculated “investment” (taking the form of customer and revenue loss) made to increase or maintain the company’s CEI score, a social scoring system administered by the George Soros-funded, Human Rights Campaign, the world’s largest LGBTQIA+ political lobbying group. The score is calculated on a variety of metrics reflecting a company’s commitment to the promotion of LGBTQIA+ ideology, political agenda, and lifestyle.

The Corporate Equality Index is an influential subset of the ESG movement that seeks to penalize corporate entities that fail to promote the political positions of the globalist Left, such as:

• Replacing merit with so-called equity in hiring and contracting. When applied, equity decisions “distribute opportunities” to a supposedly marginalized category rather than selecting the most qualified candidate
• Normalizing and celebrating LGBTQIA+
• Increasing unionization
• Opposing fossil fuels   

Enormous influence has accumulated in the hands of the promoters of this social scoring system. So, poor ESG or CEI scores can negatively impact a company’s stock value, access to foreign markets, banking platforms, payment processors, and more.

Who are the people/entities behind the campaign to coerce ideological conformity?   

BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street Bank are the top shareholders of nearly every publicly-traded company in America. These hugely powerful entities have collaborated to create a system for enforcing what they consider to be socially responsible conduct for companies.   

BlackRock CEO, Larry Fink has been called the “face of ESG” by Fortune Magazine because, in 2018, he authored the “catechism” of the ESG movement in a book entitled, “A Sense of Purpose.” The central idea of this work is that, in addition to generating profit for their shareholders, companies must make a positive contribution to society. That’s clearly a fine idea. And I would guess that most who start, build and then pass down a business enjoy a robust sense of noble purpose; of making a positive contribution to society by providing jobs, paying leases, buying equipment, buying inventory, training new skills, launching careers, etc. Indeed, every business that operates successfully makes all of these contributions to society.

But generating opportunity and prosperity are not the contributions Mr. Fink has in mind. He envisioned and is bringing to fruition a system of social scoring (like China’s) that, as applied to the entities from which we buy everything we need, will bypass the democratic process and sidestep the reach of any one government to impose ideological conformity on society through its corporate entities. 

When loss of customers, market share, revenue, and accountability to stockholders are all rendered secondary to a metric that scores a company’s conformity to a political agenda, we can expect nothing but harm to the economy and opportunity. And when beer makers, sporting-goods stores, and discount department outlets find themselves actively promoting body opposition, even to kids, in order to appease ideological overlords, it’s evident that the corporate pursuit of “social justice” has gone off the rails entirely.

Corporations are formed to generate wealth by offering something of value to the customers they serve. In doing this well, a sound entity will amass a loyal following of customers who need and want what they offer. They will contribute directly to employment opportunities by hiring and indirectly through their own purchases, leases, etc. These contributions are essential to prosperity and individual opportunity. And they are assured when a company pursues its primary purpose. The imposition on a company of a political objective is a perversion of purpose that cannot avoid undermining the company’s ability to pursue its organizing purpose. This is being proven in real-time as companies willingly sacrifice market share, revenue, and stock value in their pursuit of an absurd but coveted ranking.     

The coercive nature of any system that conditions full market participation on a measure of political/ideological alignment is a fascist exercise of power. This one, deployed from a non-governmental perch, operates beyond accountability to anyone. That makes this type of coercive social scoring dangerous even if it were not coercing support for degradations to social order and prosperity.   

Can we fight it?

Yes! In fact, through boycotts and investment decisions, Americans are causing the “price” of pursuing CEI and ESG scores over customers to substantially increase. Whether in outrage at promoting trans-gender ideology to kids or in concern for the compromised performance of holdings in our retirement accounts, Americans are pushing back in ways that are both costly and consequential. We just need more of it!