Your Favorite Brand Just Betrayed You. Here's The List.

The Resistance Sabotage Manual: Day 6 of 12

August 19, 2025

McDonald's. Target. Disney. Meta. Walmart. Ford. Amazon. Boeing. Molson Coors.

They all did the same thing. Within months of each other. Most without being asked.

Meta "retired" its DEI team in January 2025. McDonald's pivoted from "diversity" to "inclusion" the same month. Walmart ended Pride event funding. Target concluded its racial equity programs. Amazon "unified" its employee resource groups. Ford pulled out of LGBTQ+ workplace rankings.

The pattern began in mid-2024, accelerated after the election, and reached critical mass before Trump's January 2025 executive order on DEI. They didn't wait for a law. They anticipated what was coming and moved first.

This is anticipatory obedience — what historian Timothy Snyder identifies as the first step in democratic collapse. Not through force, but through preemptive corporate surrender.

The International Pattern We're Following

Germany 1933-1936: IBM's German subsidiary provided the punch card technology that would later facilitate the Holocaust. While the full implications weren't clear initially, by 1936, IBM was customizing systems specifically for racial census operations. As historian Edwin Black documented, they knew their machines were being used for population registration by an increasingly radical regime. They chose market access over caution.

Chile 1973: Within weeks of Pinochet's coup, major businesses shifted policies to align with the military regime. They terminated employees with leftist connections, ended social programs, restructured labor relations — all without explicit orders. The junta didn't need to command; businesses competed to comply first.

Hungary 2010-2014: As Viktor Orbán consolidated power, companies began self-censoring before formal media laws. Businesses adjusted content, modified policies, shifted coverage. The smart money read the political winds and adjusted accordingly.

Turkey 2013-2016: Before Erdoğan's major crackdowns, businesses were already self-censoring, adjusting their policies, preparing for what they saw coming. Anticipation became survival strategy.

The Corporate Compliance Cascade

Here's the mechanism: One activist — Robby Starbuck — with 770,000 X (Twitter) followers launched targeted campaigns against companies with conservative customer bases. The formula proved devastatingly effective:

June 2024: Tractor Supply becomes first major capitulation — eliminates all DEI programs within days of campaign launch

July 2024: John Deere follows, ending "social awareness" events

August 2024: Harley-Davidson cuts supplier diversity goals and Pride support

August 2024: Jack Daniel's (Brown-Forman) stops linking executive compensation to DEI metrics

November 2024: Walmart, America's largest private employer (1.6 million U.S. workers), folds immediately upon being targeted

January 2025: Meta, McDonald's, Amazon join the cascade

Each surrender lowered the resistance threshold for the next. As Starbuck himself stated: "We've proven we can win these fights very quickly now."

Why Corporations Surrender First

Quarterly Pressure vs. Long-term Values The average S&P 500 CEO tenure is 7.2 years. The average civil rights struggle takes decades. When activist investors threaten immediate stock impact, executives calculate: Why risk this quarter's earnings for abstract principles?

Legal Uncertainty as Cover The June 2023 Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard created genuine legal questions about race-conscious programs. Companies used this uncertainty as justification, though the ruling specifically addressed college admissions, not corporate diversity initiatives.

The Risk Mitigation Reflex Corporate legal departments operate on probability matrices:

• Maintaining DEI: Possible lawsuits from conservative activists

• Eliminating DEI: No legal risk (discrimination laws still exist regardless)

• Path of least resistance: Eliminate programs, keep lawyers happy

First-Mover Disadvantage Game theory explains the cascade: Once competitors surrender, holding out becomes competitively disadvantageous. You become the sole target. Your courage becomes your vulnerability.

Historical Parallels: The Complexity and the Clarity

IBM's Calculated Compliance (1933-1945) IBM's relationship with Nazi Germany evolved from standard business (1933) to active collaboration (1936-1945). CEO Thomas Watson received a medal from Hitler in 1937 (which he returned in 1940). While historians debate the exact timeline of IBM's knowledge, by 1941 their equipment was being used in concentration camps. The lesson isn't about perfect historical parallels — it's about how incremental compromises enable systematic horror.

Ford's Contested Collaboration Ford's German subsidiary did use forced labor, documented by Allied liberation forces. Ford claimed the Nazi government had effectively seized control of operations. Yet Henry Ford had accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle in 1938, and Ford's anti-Semitic publications were cited by Hitler himself. The ambiguity doesn't absolve; it illustrates how corporations create plausible deniability while enabling authoritarianism.

The Fanta Lesson When Coca-Cola couldn't import syrup to Nazi Germany due to trade restrictions, they didn't withdraw from the market. They invented Fanta specifically for Nazi Germany. Not illegal. Not forced. Just profitable adaptation to authoritarian markets.

This Week's Corporate Surrenders: The Full Accounting

Complete Reversals (Verified as of August 2025):

• Walmart (11/22/24): Ended Pride funding, eliminated "Latinx" terminology, removed Racial Equity Center

• Meta (1/10/25): Eliminated DEI team, changed content moderation to allow calling LGBTQ+ people "mentally ill"

• McDonald's (1/6/25): Ended numerical representation goals, retired 2021 DEI pledge

• Target (1/24/25): Concluded three-year racial equity program "as planned" (won't renew)

• Amazon (1/17/25): Dissolved diversity programs, removed inclusion language from policies

• Ford (8/28/24): Withdrew from Human Rights Campaign equality index

• Boeing (1/23/25): Disbanded global diversity department

• Molson Coors (8/24): Eliminated supplier diversity spending requirements

• John Deere (7/24): Ceased sponsoring "social or cultural awareness" events

• Harley-Davidson (8/24): Ended diversity spending goals, stopped Pride festival sponsorship

• Tractor Supply (6/24): First major domino — eliminated all DEI roles and programs

• Lowe's (8/24): Withdrew from HRC equality surveys

• Brown-Forman (8/24): Decoupled executive compensation from diversity metrics

Still Maintaining Programs (As of August 2025):

• Costco: 98% of shareholders rejected anti-DEI proposal (1/23/25 annual meeting)

• JPMorgan Chase: CEO Dimon publicly challenged activists (1/22/25 Davos)

• Goldman Sachs: Defended DEI as "crucial for competitive advantage" (Q4 2024 earnings call)

• Apple: Board recommended rejecting anti-DEI proposals (2025 proxy statement)

• Microsoft: Maintained commitment to diversity and inclusion programs

Note: Stock performance shows no clear correlation with DEI stance — Walmart up 41% YoY despite caving (as of 8/18/25), while companies maintaining DEI programs show similar gains

How to Respond to Corporate Compliance

Immediate: The Wallet Vote

• Document who caved (screenshot the list above)

• Apps like Goods Unite Us track corporate political donations

• Support companies maintaining programs

• Make surrender costly through purchasing decisions

Intermediate: Organized Resistance

• Join the "Costco Effect" — organized support for companies that resist

• Buy fractional shares to gain shareholder voting rights

• Employee resource groups: Document everything, organize internally

• Create public scorecards tracking corporate courage vs. cowardice

Systemic: Build Alternatives

• Local businesses capture 48% of revenue vs. 14% for chains

• Worker cooperatives show 4% higher productivity than traditional firms

• Community-supported enterprises create accountability

• Make corporate cowardice structurally irrelevant

Your Compliance Check

☐ Still shopping at Walmart after their November surrender
☐ Still using Meta products after January hate speech policy change
☐ Haven't checked where your 401(k) is invested
☐ Assuming "they have no choice" due to legal concerns
☐ Believing economic and political spheres are separate
☐ Waiting for others to organize the response

Each checkmark funds the infrastructure of capitulation.

The Success Story That Matters

Costco's 98% rejection of anti-DEI proposals came after activist threats. Their January 23, 2025 shareholder vote was overwhelming. The board unanimously urged shareholders to reject the proposal, stating their diversity efforts are "legally appropriate" and foster "creativity and innovation."

Stock impact? None. Customer response? Progressive groups organized "buy-cotts" and "appreciation shopping" days to support the company.

JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon (CNBC, Davos, 1/22/25): "Bring them on," he said regarding anti-DEI activists. "We are going to continue to reach out to the Black community, the Hispanic community, the LGBT community, the veterans community." The bank maintained its programs and $30 billion racial equity commitment.

The data suggests courage costs nothing. Cowardice is a choice.

The Anticipatory Obedience Playbook

What these companies just taught every future authoritarian:

1. You don't need laws — just Twitter followers

2. You don't need violence — just boycott threats

3. You don't need widespread support — just targeted pressure

4. Corporations will surrender sequentially, each making the next easier

5. They'll frame capitulation as "business evolution" or "legal compliance"

6. The machinery of exclusion builds itself

This is how democracy erodes: Not through dramatic confrontation, but through ten thousand corporate communications departments drafting surrender memos, each believing they're just being "pragmatic."

IBM was pragmatic in 1933. They were still apologizing in 2001.

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Tomorrow: Your doom scrolling addiction is making them stronger — how attention became ammunition.

The Resistance Sabotage Manual is a 12-day series examining specific mechanisms of unintentional collaboration with authoritarianism — and how to break them. Based on analysis of democratic collapses from Weimar Germany to the present day.

Data current as of August 18, 2025. Corporate policies may continue evolving.

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