RIP DEI?

It wasn’t that long ago that America’s strongest and most important export was American culture and the global dissemination of the American Dream. From movies to music, from blue jeans to drive-in movies, and from fast food to fashion, there wasn’t a single country in the world or a single cohort of teenagers and young adults that didn’t want what America was offering.

Unfortunately, throughout the progression of the Vietnam War, American culture started to cannibalize itself. The anti-war, hippie, and protesting counterculture took the reins. American cultural institutions and artists pivoted away from patriotism and moved toward anti-Establishment and anti-Western positions for a variety of reasons, both ideological and financial.

Protest became the foundational position of a generation of artists, musicians, and thinkers. As a result, America’s most powerful civil export was completely defenestrated. The left took ownership of American culture and rebellion. And since then, the American left has adopted an increasingly aggressive and metastasizing woke ideology. The result has been the near complete ideological capture of most of American civil society.

Undeniably, there has been a near ideological capture of public education, public health administration (as evidenced by the Covid years), the legacy media, and the judiciary to name a few spheres of DEI influence. Woke ideology has arguably been the most noxious and dangerous export that America has ever sent out into the world and it didn’t seem like there was an end in sight.

But then, remarkably, in November 2024, America rolled out a blockbuster, the likes of which have never been seen before. It was the greatest comeback story in American history: The Return of President Trump. And in an instant, faster than a speeding bullet, faster than you could sing a chorus of YMCA, led by President Trump, American politics and corporate America began a slow and steady retreat from DEI policies.

These toxic notions have not only poisoned civic life in America and throughout the Western world but have also resulted in public policy decisions that have resulted in catastrophic loss of life and property. The apex of this policy disaster can clearly be seen within the raging blaze of fire in Los Angeles and in all the DEI policies that led to a Dante’s inferno in America. Los Angeles, where the Mayor was in Ghana when disaster hit. Where there was no water in the hydrants, the infrastructure was crumbling, and where diversity was the policy priority for the LAFD and where $1 million of civil service salary buys precisely three woke hires named Kirsten, including one Kirsten who says it’s your fault if you end up in a fire, and where the Governor of California prioritized fish over humans.

Over the past several decades large swaths of corporate North America were bullied by a loud and vocal woke minority into adopting some of the most aggressive and ridiculous DEI and ESG policies on earth. Some corporate converts set their compasses to DEI like a north star and flopped spectacularly. Many, like Bud Light, are still licking their wounds from their predictable and avoidable “Go woke, go broke” fiasco while other companies like Jaguar remained impenetrably thick-skinned and were rightly ridiculed and mocked for brand murder, dare we call it brandicide?

But now, the vibe shift is impossible to miss or ignore. In recent weeks, we have seen President Trump set his sights on DEI in the military and American corporations like Apple and Volvo starting to sing from the new hymn sheet, along with retail giants like Costco.

And incredibly, this was just the tip of the anti-woke iceberg. In early January, following an earlier, fall visit by Mark Zuckerberg to Mar-a-Lago, Facebook announced that it would be discontinuing its third-party “fact-checkers” (i.e. “censorship”) program and cutting its DEI hiring initiatives. And now, they are dropping like flies! McDonald’s and Amazon are the latest to axe their DEI programs.

Unfortunately, the astonishing and heartbreaking scenes in Los Angeles are a direct result of abject mismanagement of the city and state and exacerbated by unqualified hires and anti-human, anti-common sense policies that should never, ever have been permitted to escape the faculty lounges, let alone leap into civic life. The woke petri dish has already created colossal havoc in every element of civil society in America and in much of the rest of the Western world. Deep reflection and immediate change are needed.

If the deep blue voters of California recognize the folly of their choices and the destruction-driven bent of their elected leaders, if they demand answers and repudiate their woke ways, perhaps there is hope. For the good of the country, and indeed the entire Western world, America’s most poisonous export must be put to pasture once and for all.

Author

Laura Rosen Cohen

Laura Rosen Cohen is a Toronto writer. Her work has been featured in The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, National Post, The Jerusalem Post, The Jerusalem Report, The Canadian Jewish News and Newsweek among others. She is a special needs parent and also a columnist and the official In House Jewish Mother of internationally best-selling author Mark Steyn at SteynOnline.com

Related Topics:#BrownstoneInstitute #DEI #ESG LauraRosenCohen

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Business

PepsiCo joins growing list of companies tweaking DEI policies

Published on February 22, 2025

Todayville

MxM News

Quick Hit:

PepsiCo is the latest major U.S. company to adjust its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies as 47th President Donald Trump continues his campaign to end DEI practices across the federal government and private sector. The company is shifting away from workforce representation goals and repurposing its DEI leadership, signaling a broader trend among American corporations.

Key Details:

PepsiCo will end DEI workforce representation goals and transition its chief DEI officer to focus on associate engagement and leadership development.
The company is introducing a new “Inclusion for Growth” strategy as its five-year DEI plan concludes.
PepsiCo joins other corporations, including Target and Alphabet-owned Google, in reconsidering DEI policies following Trump’s call to end “illegal DEI discrimination and preferences.”

Diving Deeper:

PepsiCo has announced significant changes to its DEI initiatives, aligning with a growing movement among U.S. companies to revisit diversity policies amid political pressure. According to an internal memo, the snacks and beverages giant will no longer pursue DEI workforce representation goals. Instead, its chief DEI officer will transition to a broader role that focuses on associate engagement and leadership development. This shift is part of PepsiCo’s new “Inclusion for Growth” strategy, set to replace its expiring five-year DEI plan.

The company’s decision to reevaluate its DEI policies comes as President Donald Trump continues his push against DEI practices, urging private companies to eliminate what he calls “illegal DEI discrimination and preferences.” Trump has also directed federal agencies to terminate DEI programs and has warned that academic institutions could face federal funding cuts if they continue with such policies.

PepsiCo is not alone in its reassessment. Other major corporations, including Target and Google, have also modified or are considering changes to their DEI programs. This trend reflects a broader corporate response to the evolving political landscape surrounding DEI initiatives.

Additionally, PepsiCo is expanding its supplier base by broadening opportunities for all small businesses to participate, regardless of demographic categories. The company will also discontinue participation in single demographic category surveys, further signaling its shift in approach to DEI.

As companies like PepsiCo navigate these changes, the debate over the future of DEI in corporate America continues. With Trump leading a campaign against these practices, more companies may follow suit in reevaluating their DEI strategies.

Carbon Tax

Mark Carney has history of supporting CBDCs, endorsed Freedom Convoy crackdown

Published on February 20, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Carney also said last week that he is willing to use all government powers, including “emergency powers,” to enforce his energy plan if elected prime minister.  

World Economic Forum-linked Liberal Party leadership frontrunner Mark Carney has a history of supporting central bank digital currencies, and in 2022 supported “choking off the money” donated to the Freedom Convoy.

In his 2021 book Value(s), Carney said that the “future of money” is a “central bank stablecoin, known as a central bank digital currency or CBDC.”

He noted in his book that such a currency would be similar to current cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, but without the private nature afforded to it by its decentralization.

“It is simply untenable in democracies that the core of the monetary system could be based on forms of electronic private money whose creators control large blocks of the currency, like Bitcoin,” he wrote. “Cryptocurrencies are not the future of money.”

Carney noted that a CBDC, if “properly designed,” could serve “all the functions to which private cryptocurrencies and stablecoins aspire while addressing the fundamental legal and governance issues that will, in time, undermine those alternatives.”

Expanding on his worldview in relation to CBDCs, Carney suggested that “fear” can be taken advantage of to shape the future of money.

“With fear on the march, people were willing to surrender to Hobbes’ ‘Leviathan’ such basic rights as the freedom to leave their homes,” he wrote. “And so it is with money. People will support the delegation to independent central banks of the tough decisions that are necessary to maintain the value of money provided the authorities deliver monetary and financial stability.”

Some Canadians are alarmed by the prospect of CBDCs, a fear that only worsened after the Liberals under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau froze hundreds of bank accounts it deemed were importantly linked to the 2022 Freedom Convoy.

During the Freedom Convoy, Carney wrote in an op-ed for the Globe and Mail, “Those who are still helping to extend this occupation must be identified and punished to the full force of the law,” adding that “Drawing the line means choking off the money that financed this occupation.”

In addition to his comments on CBDCs, Carney has a history of promoting anti-life and anti-family agendas, including abortion and LGBT-related  efforts. He has also previously endorsed the carbon tax and even criticized Trudeau when the tax was exempted from home heating oil to reduce costs for some Canadians. 

Carney also said last week that he is willing to use all government powers, including “emergency powers,” to enforce his energy plan if elected prime minister.  

The Liberal Party of Canada will choose its next leader, who will automatically become prime minister, on March 9, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that he plans to step down as Liberal Party leader once a new leader has been chosen.    

In contrast to Carney, Poilievre has promised that if he is elected prime minister, he would stop any implementation of a “digital currency” or a compulsory “digital ID” system.  

When it comes to a digital Canadian dollar, the Bank of Canada found that Canadians are very wary of a government-backed digital currency, concluding that a “significant number” of citizens would resist the implementation of such a system. 