Everywhere you look, brands are pushing LGBTQ+ messaging. Think they’re just virtue signaling? No — they are being financially incentivized by the country’s top three investment companies — BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street Bank — and the largest LGBTQ+ political lobbying group in the world.
In an April 7 article titled “Inside the CEI system pushing brands to endorse celebs like Dylan Mulvaney,” New York Post author Dana Kennedy reveals an authoritarian-style ratings framework called the Corporate Equality Index (CEI) that ranks companies based on five categories for “inclusiveness.”
The system is enforced by an organization called the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Led by Kelley Robinson, who previously served as executive director of Planned Parenthood and as a political organizer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, HRC is the largest LGBTQ+ political lobbying group in the world.
The George Soros-backed group issues report cards for America’s largest companies, rewarding or penalizing them according to CEI ratings criteria. According to HRC, more than 840 U.S. companies achieved high CEI scores in its latest report.
Businesses that earn the maximum 100 index points are awarded the title of “Best Place To Work For LGBTQ Equality.” Fifteen of the top 20 Fortune-ranked companies received 100% ratings last year.
Among the companies to receive perfect CEI scores in 2022 were Amazon, Apple, Google, and Walmart.
Companies that do not receive high CEI scores can be punished financially.
The five major ratings criteria for CEI include:
- Workforce Protections (5 points): Provides protections for sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression.
- Inclusive Benefits (50 points): Provides health insurance for same- and different-sex spouses and partners, including equal health coverage for transgender individuals “without exclusion for ‘medically necessary care’” (I assume this means sex-change surgery).
- Supporting an Inclusive Culture (25 points): Includes gender identity and sexual orientation training; intersectionality training (mandatory); annual surveys that allow employees the option to identify as LGBTQ+; gender-neutral dress codes and “trans-inclusive restroom/facilities policy”; and gender transition guidelines with supportive restroom, dress code and documentation guidance.
- Corporate Social Responsibility (20 points): Includes LGBTQ employee recruitment and outreach efforts; marketing or advertising to consumers (including advertising with LGBTQ+ content or sponsoring LGBTQ organizations and events — this is how we get transgender spokespeople such as Dylan Mulvaney); and demonstrating public support for LGBTQ+ equality.
- Responsible Citizenship (–25 points): Deducts points for “a large-scale official or public anti-LGBTQ blemish on their recent records.” Examples include “directing corporate charitable contributions to organizations whose primary mission includes advocacy against LGBTQ equality,” which of course could include donating to Christian groups.
From The Post‘s article:
The CEI is a lesser-known part of the burgeoning ESG (Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance) “ethical investing” movement increasingly pushed by the country’s top three investment firms. ESG funds invest in companies that oppose fossil fuels, push for unionization, and stress racial and gender equity over merit in hiring and board selection.
As a result, some American CEOs are more concerned about pleasing BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street Bank — who are among the top shareholders of most American publicly-traded corporations (including Nike, Anheuser-Busch and Kate Spade) — than they are about irritating conservatives, numerous sources told The Post.
What is ESG investing?
You may have heard about ESG investing. Derided by many as “woke” investing, ESG investing allows fund managers to funnel money into green-energy firms or companies with left-leaning ideologies. I’ve heard the stocks generally don’t perform as well as the stocks of “non-woke” companies because, as we now see, these companies may be more concerned with following progressive agendas than fulfilling their fiduciary duties to shareholders.
In March, Biden used his first veto to undo a Trump-era regulation which effectively barred employers from selecting ESG funds for their company 401K plans. Will this be good news or bad news for your retirement savings?
Wielding CEI like a club
James Lindsay, a political podcaster who spoke to The Post, said the HRC administers the CEI ranking through a rigorous compliance model — essentially a closed-loop system where high-level investment access is predicated on meeting specific ideological benchmarks. As Vivek Ramaswamy noted to The Post, the influence of these fund managers often dictates executive compensation and board appointments, making it nearly impossible for leadership to deviate from the mandated agenda.
Said Ramaswamy, “They can make it very difficult for you if you don’t abide by their agendas.”
The ESG enforcement apparatus
So, there you have it. The recent shift in brand identities — seen in campaigns from Bud Light to Hershey’s to Nike — is the logical output of this CEI framework. This isn’t a grassroots cultural shift; it is a top-down institutional requirement. Corporations are now prioritizing these index scores over traditional market sentiment because their primary ‘customer’ is no longer the consumer, but the ESG-driven investment firms that control their capital.
Here’s what it all means: America’s brands are now being subsidized by the world’s largest investment firms to push liberal/Democrat/woke agendas. As a result, their primary allegiance is no longer to shareholders, but to BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street Bank and powerful lobbyists such as the HRC. The ESG money these firms pay to push their agendas more than makes up for any revenue the companies will lose from consumer boycotts and lost sales, meaning the incentive now is to chase higher CEI ratings rather than to satisfy customers or fulfill their fiduciary duties.
The bottom line is that companies are no longer producing products for consumers for profits, but producing propaganda for the elites for a payoff. It’s no longer capitalism, but backdoor Collectivism (you know what I mean), and it’s happening right under our noses.
I wonder, what other agendas are these elite corporate controllers and lobbyists trying to push, and what other outcomes are they attempting to influence?
Read The Post’s article here. The Daily Mail published a similar story on CEI and ESG influence on April 8.
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Yes, Black people are overrepresented in the extreme, LGBTQ+ is also being forced into everything. There is slso an un-organized anti-white sentiment that has been exploding on social media over the last few years. However, your references to George Soros and other sources of the movement are absolutely fiction. It’s too bad you’re steeped in Maga-land non-reality. Obviously you didn’t do any real research. I’m obviously not a right-winger, but I do agree with you that actual minority groups are being set on a pedestal and over-promoted while white people are treated as garbage and are all but vanished from ads and shows. Moderate voices don’t discuss it enough. This doesn’t need to be a MAGA thing.
George Soros, is that you?
But why are these companies pushing this agenda and corporate structure? I don’t see the benefit of blackrock and vanguard pushing this agenda as it only hurts productivity of the companies that they’re investing in.
Many of the directors on these boards have bought into the lie that the people they answer to will accept a few of their failures if they destroy the lives of anyone ‘beneath’ them for their failures, no matter how insignificant, and just get rid of anyone who has outlived their usefulness. These people foolishly believe that they aren’t being told the same lies they’re telling their ‘underlings,’ and therefore believe that when the day of reckoning comes, they will be praised for their efforts, much like many of their idols (think Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc) were. They willfully ignore the realities of these men and think themselves indestructible and immune from consequence, and will only learn the truth when it becomes too late for them to repent.
In short, the instructors will behave toward their students as they instruct their students to behave toward others. If the instructor teaches the student to betray those who disagree with them or who make minor mistakes, then the instructor will betray the student when the student slips in any way. Note that there is no ‘if’ here, there is only when. Also, this problem has existed for all of time, it is not new, and modern communism is not original, its just a repackaged box of the same garbage that has plagued the world in every era of the past. It’s been romanticized by those determined to bring about a new era of enslavement and captivity for the masses at what they believe will be their benefit.
There is no benefit, as you have rightly identified, but those who peddle in such nonsense will ignore the consequences of their actions as they intentionally remain ignorant of the suffering they cause. For those of us seeking to overcome these assaults, we need to let the wicked fight each other and offer help to those who, having been rejected, seek help from us, even when they have attacked us before. We must be the instructors who teach our students to forgive and offer a helping hand, no matter how badly we are treated. In doing so, we become the light for future generations to follow, providing a foundation of peace and civility to the oppressed and downtrodden, not so we can boast about our achievements, but so we can help others find the same path we’ve set out upon and in doing so build them up.
Excellent reply, GDT.
ESG is part of the STAKEHOLDER capitalism the big pharmaceutical companies and the other corrupt “pillars” of the “New Normal” — Blackrock, Vanguard and big corporate interests, Soros and the rest — are pushing. Stakeholder capitalism is Communism in drag (not my quote but it describes it correctly) and all these societal digs at all of us are done purposely and are in every level of our society. We are in the middle of a coup. I mean if you truly won the election and you wanted to do what was right for the people of America and the world, why would you spend the last 7 years thwarting a sitting president’s ability to run the country properly according to the Constitution and rule of law while in office and then continue the takedown after he is out and now start another round of medical mandates and restrictions before the next election cycle. How many hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted getting rid of a political rival… then use your time in “Office” to destroy the lives of ALL Americans in every way possible. WHAT IS THE REASON for this?
The only reason could be that we are in the middle of a coup, hence all the propaganda, all the riots, fires, purposely fomented conflict between every group of people, the attack on our Constitutional rights and freedoms, and censoring dissenting voices… it’s textbook.
So that is why there is forced diversity in commercials. Evolution takes thousands of years, but to me we were evolving naturally out of old ideas about each other and into a better world view and it is my true belief that humanity has more similarities than differences, we all want to work, have purpose, raise our families and live in peace. Don’t buy into the garbage going on, stand firmly against this forced agenda because it is so evil and wrong and against natural law, that it will never succeed. Just say no.
DD
The choice before us seems to be: The Great Reset vs. The Great Awakening. Thanks to posts like yours, DD, I have hope that we will defeat the former and have an opportunity to create a freer, better, and more enlightened world with the latter.
Two words: Larry Fink. He’s the CEO of BlackRock who’s been pushing this ESG business since at least 2012. Perhaps because he is a true believer, or perhaps because he saw it as a way to grow his business in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis that left finance companies’ reputations in tatters. His strategy: adopt the already written ESG principles of the 2004 United Nations report “Who Cares Wins” to reposition BlackRock as an unimpeachably virtuous and civic-minded company that would appear much more favorably to regulators. So far, it’s worked wonders. BlackRock has grown tremendously and even acquired quasi-governmental power with the Biden administration. (Recently, one of the big MSM papers called BlackRock “the fourth branch of government.”)
Never mind the fact that ESG policies hurt companies and generally aren’t sustainable. It’s pushing the agenda that’s important, and these people have the money and power to keep their investees afloat until their objectives have been reached.
You may or may not be interested to know that Larry Fink has recently backed away from using the term “ESG,” understanding that the term has become toxic. (I think the new term is “thematic investing.”) But though the name has changed, the goals remain the same. This marriage of political elites (including Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum) and banking elites continues, as do their efforts to fundamentally transform the world in which we live.
It’s the new bread and circuses. As long as people are at each others throats over such trivia as men competing in women’s sports, they’re not looking at who owns what and the exponential rise in wealth disparity. Political discourse and debate is controlled by BlackRock.
Thanks, Gordon. I’m so glad to see more and more people catching on.
Hello. Here is a link to a video of a guy’s sales pitch for his investments.
He says George Soros is blown out of the water by Michael Bloomberg and BlackRock’s Larry Fink when it comes to the ESG agenda.
On the flip side there is Warren Buffet investing in natural gas!
The Two Men Destroying America
Cranky readers, I wouldn’t normally take you on a deep dive about global elites such as Klaus Schwab and his buddies at the World Economic Forum, but this conversation about ESG investors and those who “set the agenda” for corporations and people around the world is the perfect lead-in. With that in mind, I’d like to share with you an absolutely fascinating discussion between Jonathan Tobin, editor-in-chief of Cleveland Jewish News, and historian and novelist Michael Walsh on The Great Reset — what it is, what it aims to do, and why you should be concerned.
More than just a delightful listen of an illuminating conversation between two brilliant men, it is must-see material for every freedom-loving person who cares about classical values and the future of the West.
Excellent post. This will be shared many times. 👍
Powerful and depressing all at the same time. Thanks Cranky for this post…explains it all. I am even more determined that my kids not watch any of this propaganda bull crap. It seems there is nothing to be done now but watch the country be strangled to death by the progressive elites… they have been trying to kill the Constitution and free enterprise since Woodrow Wilson days without success. The she/him (shim) person thingie in advertising (along with all the forced diversity) may just do the trick for them. Whodathunkit?
Thanks, Kinchan. Good to hear from you.
Thanks for posting this blog. Further confirmation about what this is ALL about. Not just the rainbow shit, but the “wokeness,” the environmental hysteria, everything. The very people who have screamed the loudest for decades about the Republicans/conservatives and their fatcat compadres are the guiltiest of them all. It’s all about the power, the money, and the control. It’s time for everybody to get “woke,” just get woke about what’s really going on and why. Lions, not Sheep, people. Lions, not Sheep.
Exactly right, Robert. I had been struggling for months to understand the woke push in advertising, to explain the forced diversity in TV commercials and the willingness of brands to alienate their existing customers in favor of real or imagined modern, progressive audiences. This revelation about ESG and CEI explains it all.