Have you driven a Ford lately? That question put to a jingle was a staple of Ford Motor Company’s marketing in the 1980s, and the idea might just come back into fashion for more Americans now that the company has joined a growing roster of businesses rejecting race- and sex-based policies collectively known as DEI.
DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion, though I’ve argued that reordering the words yields a more accurate acronym: DIE.
That’s because the Left’s agenda is to kill American culture — a culture that grew and thrived based on merit, not immutable genetic traits. The Left even wants to destroy one of those traits — sex — by insisting that gender is actually mutable. Fact-check: It’s not.
Ford’s, er, transition is a big deal. In a letter to employees, CEO Jim Farley explained that the company is going to focus on doing business in the most effective way possible, not dedicating precious company resources to political agendas. He didn’t put it quite that way, of course, but that’s the message.
Acknowledging that “our employees and customers hold a wide range of beliefs,” Farley noted that the company has, over the past year, “taken a fresh look at our policies and practices to ensure they support our values, drive business results, and take into account the current landscape.”
He explains one core value: “fostering a safe and inclusive workplace and building a team that leverages diverse perspectives, backgrounds and thinking styles to craft the best products, services, and experiences for customers.” That sounds like Business 101.
Later in the letter came a bombshell: “We made the decision early this year to stop participating in external culture surveys such as the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.” The HRC is a core component of the Rainbow Mafia, and crossing the mafia has historically been a no-no. Sure enough, HRC blasted the decision, saying Ford had “ABANDONED its values and commitments to an inclusive workplace, cowering to MAGA weirdo Robby Starbuck.”
Starbuck has indeed led the charge to expose the ill effects of DEI in corporate America, playing a key role in winning victories over it at places like Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniel’s, and Lowe’s. All of those companies arguably have a customer base that skews conservative, and none of them wants to become the next Bud Light.
But the success extends to Microsoft, Snapchat, Zoom, and [checks notes] CNN.
As for Ford, HRC continued, “With the LGBTQ+ community wielding $1.4 TRILLION in spending power and 30% of Gen Z identifying as LGBTQ+, we won’t forget this shortsighted decision and its impact.”
Nice business you have there. Shame if anything happened to it.
Mafia threats aside, Ford and these other corporations have made their decisions in large part because so many Americans are fed up with DEI ruining companies and products. Unlike the Rainbow Mafia and the Left generally, conservatives are generally lousy at boycotting. Perhaps that’s changing, or perhaps we greatly outnumber the loudmouth wokies.
To that point, Ford is also well aware of two major business considerations. The people who buy and drive F-150s, the most popular vehicle in America, are not generally woke or satisfied with DEI policies. Yours truly is one of them — I’ve been driving F-150s for over 20 years. Pleasing the lion’s share of your customer base is, again, just basic business.
Second, Ford has lost billions of dollars chasing the Left’s green dream. While the company’s EV F-150 Lightning initially sold like hotcakes, demand has collapsed to the point that Ford is backing off other electric vehicles — even with Joe Biden’s mandates. That’s true of other manufacturers, as well.
There’s a third consideration that applies not just to Ford but across the board. After the Supreme Court struck down Harvard University’s racist affirmative action admissions policies last year, our Douglas Andrews considered future implications for businesses. Because DEI is synonymous with discrimination, he surmised, businesses would start backing off of it to avoid ruinous litigation.
Sure enough, it began last summer with companies cutting DEI job positions. It has continued with a larger rejection of DEI as corporate policy.
The danger, of course, is that leftists will just rebrand and proceed with the same agenda under some other name, so we must be vigilant. But going into Labor Day weekend, I can hardly think of better news than a union-dominated company like Ford coming back to its senses.
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