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Snoop Dogg director on one-man crusade to strip ‘woke’ policies out of big brands

After pushing Harley-Davidson to about-turn on its inclusion strategies, the former music video producer is eyeing which companies are next

To its riders, Harley-Davidson motorcycles represent the all-American dream of freedom, independence, and love of the open road.
But in more recent times, the company added diversity, equity and inclusion – bywords of the modern corporate world – to its core values.
That was until Robby Starbuck came on the scene.
This unlikely former music video director has come from nowhere to deride the policies of companies he feels are vacuous or “woke”, and scored a major victory when Harley-Davidson said it was abandoning the ideas he had long campaigned against.
Other brands that have surrendered to his crusade are home improvement company Lowe’s and the carmaker Ford.
Starbuck claims he is so influential that companies are now ditching their diversity policies before he has a chance to mount a campaign against them.
Last week, the owner of Jack Daniel’s whisky scrapped its diversity targets ahead of Starbuck launching a planned lobbying effort against the drink maker.
“Each win increases the probability of more companies doing it, especially if they see that we’ve been costing companies money. These companies are coming to the realisation that diversity, equity and inclusion [DEI] policies are costing them money and causing division in the workplace,” Starbuck said.
Starbuck was directing music videos before he ventured into politics, and had success working with some veritable stars, including Snoop Dogg and Akon. But in 2015, his priorities shifted when he endorsed Donald Trump for president.
“Being in that industry, I realised very quickly that people like me are not allowed to talk about their political ideas,” he told The Telegraph. “You have to be quiet. And so eventually, I got sick of being quiet.”
Starbuck’s career almost immediately nosedived but it opened the door to the path he’s now on.
“I’m not going to pretend I was blindsided by it. I knew that was going to happen, and I was prepared for the inevitable fallout of that,” he recalled.
Starbuck’s means of attack is neither novel or sophisticated. But when he has half a million followers it doesn’t need to be. Through relentless tweets – sometimes dozens a day – Starbuck triggers social media pile-ons. They become impossible for a company to ignore when they appear to get the support of the likes of Elon Musk, who has nearly 200 million followers.
In many ways, it fulfilled a destiny he always felt he was due. The 35 year old was born in California to Cuban parents and grandparents in the conservative-leaning city of Temecula in a household “scarred by communism”.
“Growing up as a kid in America with a family that has that background, I grew up very hyper aware of the threat of far-Left ideologies,” Starbuck said.
“But I was always very much an independent thinker … and interested in the opposite point of view, whether it was from people on the Left or the Right,” Starbuck said.
When the backlash came from his support for Trump, he felt politics was his new calling.
His first scalp was Tractor Supply Co. After receiving a tip-off from an anonymous employee, Starbuck started looking into the company’s DEI policies.
An informant at the company revealed how the company would provide LGBT training for staff, fund Pride events, promote climate change activism and ensure a certain proportion of staff members were from minority backgrounds.
Starbuck highlighted these policies online, arguing how they “didn’t align with the customer base” of Tractor Supply Co. Three weeks after he launched his movement, the company announced it had dropped DEI targets and stopped providing data to the Human Rights Campaign.
For Starbuck, it wasn’t about bringing the company down. “They recognised what was wrong straight away and changed. I still buy from them … it’s just about ensuring companies reflect their customer base,” he said.
Once the garden supplies company had capitulated, Starbuck knew he was onto something. And with it, his army of online support was growing.
Next on his list was John Deere, another manufacturer of agricultural machinery, which also rapidly about-turned on its DEI policy after pressure from Starbuck’s movement.
By far and away Starbuck’s biggest win, at least psychologically, was Harley-Davidson. Arguably the most iconic company in America – whose emblem of a pair of outspread wings adorns the leather jackets of motorcycle lovers across the country – had been harping on about DEI values that were a departure from what the company has always been about, said Starbuck.
For weeks Starbuck and his followers called out the company’s DEI values, which included a scoring system that rates how inclusive businesses are for LGBT people.
Last week, the company announced it was ditching the scoring system following an internal stakeholder review. It has also put all sponsorship deals under review, stating that its primary focus will be retaining its “loyal riding community”.
It also announced it will no longer adhere to targets to purchase supplies from female or minority-owned groups.
According to Mr Starbuck, Harley-Davidson lacked sincerity. “Harley customers live and breathe the company, they literally bury themselves in the brand. They have made great and important changes … but will it prevent further damage? No, bikers are hyper aware now,” he said.
Starbuck’s tank had got a fresh injection of fuel and he now seems unstoppable.
Jack Daniels followed by scrapping its diversity targets and then Lowe’s. The Ford Motor Co. said on Wednesday that it would no longer take part in an annual survey from an LGBT advocacy group or use quotas for minority dealerships and suppliers.
So what’s next for Starbuck and his campaign? Only he knows. He refuses to reveal to anyone – even in private – which company he is planning to target next to mitigate the risk of insider trading.
“I would expect, in general, for a little while, we’re going to be mostly focused on companies that have a very large contingent of Right-wing customers,” Starbuck said.
“Those companies need the Right-wing customers to go into their stores and to their events. That’s our focus. Once we shift the Overton window of normalcy, then maybe we can move into the centre and influence more companies.”

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