Conservative activist Robby Starbuck released an exposé on Wednesday about John Deere, a company relied upon by rural Americans, primarily conservatives, to do their jobs. It turns out that selling tractors is not the company’s only focus.
John Deere, renowned for its iconic green tractors and a long-standing symbol of American agricultural expertise, has betrayed its predominantly conservative customer base by embracing several DEI policies.
According to Starbuck, these initiatives include sponsoring a pride event aimed at young children, including toddlers, implementing gender identity training, and encouraging employees to use preferred pronouns in all communications.
The company is so aligned with woke ideologies that the far-left Human Rights Campaign, a major player in the DEI movement, awarded it a 95/100 score.
“John Deere has been one of the most beloved brands by conservative farmers but recently on CEO John May’s watch, they’ve gone woke,” Starbuck wrote.
Additionally, the company has promoted Marxist BLM activists like Ibram Kendi and Robin DeAngelo and is implementing unspecified DEI policies in Latin America and India. Interestingly, the Middle East and Africa appear to be exempt from these initiatives.
Here is the complete list of woke policies John Deere has implemented, according to Starbuck:
- Funding a pride event for kids as young as 3
- “Genderbread man” training
- They ask employees to list their “preferred pronouns” on all communications
- Bill Gates is listed as their largest shareholder
- John Deere celebrated their accounting and finance team taking United Way’s 21 day “United For Equity” program
- When I did “United For Equity” program it promoted Ibram Kendi, the woke children’s book “Anti-Racist Baby”, “Awake to Woke to Work”, a podcast on the concept of “Whiteness”, woke activist Robin DiAngelo, bigotry against Christians who supposedly have “Christian Privilege” and more
- The woke policies have spread across the global John Deere brand with many of their DEI policies also being forced on their Latin America and India branches
- LGBTQ & race based identity groups at corporate
- A total commitment to DEI policies
- 95/100 CEI score from the HRC
Per John Deere:
We encourage employees to use their personal pronouns (such as he/him/his, she/her/hers, they/them/theirs) in internal and external communications, including email correspondence and email signatures.
Not only is this a sign of mutual respect, it’s practical for our global company. With employees and customers on six continents, sharing our pronouns and respecting one another’s helps foster a sense of belonging for all, since the use of gendered nouns varies across cultures and individuals.
Starbuck noted that these revelations about John Deere are “only the beginning,” with more revelations expected in the coming weeks and months.
Making the situation much worse, John Deere announced massive layoffs of American workers in the Midwest last week and is relocating factories to Mexico. According to Fox Business, the company cited high operational costs in the United States and declining tractor sales as reasons for the move.
From Fox Business:
The company is slashing around 280 workers from a plant in East Moline, Illinois, while another 230 employees are being let go at a factory in Davenport, Iowa. About 100 production employees at the company’s Dubuque, Iowa, plant will also be impacted. All layoffs are said to be effective from Aug. 30, the company tells FOX Business.
About 500 employees have been let go at its Waterloo plant in Iowa, per WQAD.
John Deere plans to lay off hundreds of employees across three Midwest factories by the end of next month. The layoffs are due to reduced demand for products from those factories, the company said. https://t.co/1Tid1lSD07
— NewsNation (@NewsNation) July 8, 2024
Starbuck wrote:
To put it mildly, John Deere seems to have forgotten who their customers are. Having a farm myself, I’m disgusted that a once great American brand is now taking this turn to seemingly embrace leftist policies that are diametrically opposed to the values of most farmers.
What’s unknown is whether CEO John May is knowingly forcing these policies or if it’s gotten out of control and he’s out of the loop on how bad it is. His response to this story will be very revealing as to his culpability in the implementation of woke policies.
This report is only the beginning. We have so many pieces of news to report that it’s going to take weeks, maybe even months to report it thoroughly.
I plan to report what we’ve found piece by piece so customers and potential customers are informed on the brand’s policies. If they’re proud of adopting woke policies then John Deere and their CEO should be overjoyed by my reporting on their policies, positions, donations and culture.
Next we’re going to be doing a deep dive on donations, interviews their executives have given, hiring practices, woke causes they’ve supported, the difficulties some farmers have faced trying to repair their products and much more.
If you think John Deere’s values don’t align with yours and you’re a customer or potential customer who wants to speak out, I’ve provided their email and corporate customer service number at the end of this video. Please ALWAYS be respectful and remember that many of the employees disagree with the corporate policies. The majority of your local dealers likely also disagree with this culture change so be very respectful if you reach out to them about your concerns.
My goal with this reporting is never destruction. My goal is to inform consumers about the values major companies are adopting so they can make choices about what they’re willing to support.
When we use our voices and wallets to vote our values, we can change the world and we can restore great American companies to a culture of sanity, meritocracy and culture war neutrality OR we can inspire competitors to step up to the plate to fight for our business.
As we saw with my Tractor Supply stories, millions of people spoke out against these types of woke policies and ultimately Tractor Supply did the right thing by eliminating woke policies, donations, trainings and positions because of your voices.
The customer is king and most of us just want companies we shop at to stop virtue signaling about divisive social, cultural and political issues.
If you agree then share this video and tag your favorite accounts so they see this news too.
Watch:
It’s time to expose John Deere.@JohnDeere has been one of the most beloved brands by conservative farmers but recently on CEO John May’s watch, they’ve gone woke.
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) July 9, 2024
Here’s some of what we found:
• Funding a pride event for kids as young as 3
• “Genderbread man” training
•… pic.twitter.com/nWnSUCW08K
