May 13, 2025 • 36 mins
In this episode, Lisa sits down with O.H. Skinner, Executive Director of the Alliance for Consumers, for an insightful look into the shifting landscape of corporate America's diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. Skinner traces the rise of DEI during the Obama era, the backlash and policy shifts under the Trump administration, and the growing tension companies face as they navigate political crossfire and rising consumer activism. Tune in to explore how external pressures—from Washington to Wall Street—are reshaping the values businesses promote. The Truth with Lisa Boothe is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network.
#diversity #equity #inclusion #DEI #corporate #America #Obama #Trump #progressive #agenda #backlash #activist #businessinterests #workplaceculture
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was at a conference recently and I heard my
next guest speak and I thought to myself, let's get
him on the show. He was discussing Corporate America's embrace
of diversity, equity and inclusion. But he was saying things
I hadn't heard before, and it was just different angles
that I'm used to hearing. And that's what I try
to do on this podcast, is just to get different angles,
to get different guests, to keep things interesting, but also
(00:22):
just so that we can all continue learning together. But
what he was talking about is Obama's role former Price
in Obama's role in pushing these companies to the left,
how his people infiltrated Corporate America and turned them woke.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
So we'll discuss that.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
We'll discuss what happened, and we'll also discuss the latest
course correction now that President Trump and his administration all
these DEI executive orders and you know, pushing America's companies
back to the right. So we'll discuss that course correction.
How long will it last? What do we need to know?
So stay tuned for oh Skinner. He's the executive director
of Alliance for Consumers. He also previously worked for the
(01:00):
Arizona Attorney General. He was the state's lead council in
the United States Supreme Court. So stay tuned for O.
Wag Skinner.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, O Aged, it's great to have you on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I recently met you, and you know, we're having discussions
about some of this DEI stuff, and so I was like,
I got to get them on my podcast. So I
appreciate you making the time, and I look forward to
this conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
This is gonna be fun. It will be fun.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Okay, So let's start with because you you said something
which I hadn't really given much thought about prior to
you saying it. But explain walk us through the role
that the Obama administration and Obama world played in pushing
these companies to woke and pushing these companies towards DEI.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah. I mean, I think what's really important to understand
about corporate America at a basic level is that they
just respond to incentives and pressures, especially pressures, and you know,
you have to go back in time to what feels
like forever ago. But you know, Obama wins, he's the president.
He starts putting all this pressure on corporate America to
do diversity to do all these things that we now
(02:07):
know as is DEI. And then he gets re elected
and so especially in his second term, you have all
of this exodus of Obama era officials and lawyers and
agency heads, and they're all going into corporate America. Right.
Like one of the things that's easy to forget is
that the Obama people all got jobs at places like
(02:28):
Google or you know, Tony West is like a great example.
He ended up going to Uber and being the head
of government affairs, and it's like you can literally follow
the trajectory of like DEEI in America. One of my
friends says, by following this Tony West. And so they
all leave to go to corporate America, and they're busy
telling corporate America that the way to be safe from
the Obama administration is to just get ahead of them.
(02:50):
Do a little bit more diversity, do a little bit
more eesg, do a little bit more, a little bit more.
You stay one step ahead of the government, and then
the government doesn't smack you, doesn't find you, doesn't sue you,
and then we all forget that. Like all of those
smart people thought that Hillary Clinton was going to be president,
and so as the second term of Obama is ending.
(03:11):
They're not pulling back into neutral, They're not getting worried
about maybe having a direction shift in Washington. They're like
doubling and tripling down. They're hiring as many officials as
they possibly can from the Obama team and people they
think are going to be favorable from the Clinton world.
They're just like really digging in and then Trump wins. Right.
So the easy thing to understands you look at the
(03:33):
world now is that all of the seeds for what
we see in corporate America were driven by this belief
from corporate America that the way to make the pressure
stop from Washington was to hire the Obama people, who then,
of course, as you know, they just import all of
what they were going to do in the government. But
now they have control over the companies, right, so they're
(03:55):
just pushing the companies to do everything that they would
have done had they still been in government. Right. So
that's I think really to understand where it came from,
you have to understand this like arc of what they
thought was going to be twelve years of you know,
strong push from Washington with democratic presidents to do all
(04:15):
of what we now know of as Dea Well.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And what's interesting is, you know, we know that Obama
made race a you know, obviously being the first black president,
but really just a lot of race initiatives and really
pushing sort of that racial division in the country. I
mean the irony is when he left, I think it
was even CNN said that, you know, fifty four percent
of Americans believed that race relations had gotten worse under
(04:40):
his time, so obviously didn't you know, I guess he
did to do an effective job driving people apart. Was
that just for political reasons or what do you think
the strategy for Obama was with all of that?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
You know, that's hard. I always people ask me sometimes
whether the government officials are doing something for political reasons
or for you know, for their own ultras degreesment. I
think it's always a mix of things. You know, It's
hard when you are pushing this narrative for such a
long time on the left about where so many of
(05:13):
their policies are are hinged on like social justice, racial justice,
all these things, right, Like, they hang so many of
their policies on those things, which you know, it's the
easy answer is to say, once you start selling something
for certain reasons. You can't just sell half the package.
(05:36):
If you're telling people that environmental justice is so important
because minority communities are hardest hit. If you're telling people
that you need to have different tax policies, different spending
policies all in the name of racial or environmental or
all these other things, right, it's also really hard to
then try and be like, but we shouldn't be promoting
people in corporate America, and we should like, once you've
sold part of the package, the rest of the ideas
(05:58):
follow if that makes sense, even if they weren't like
the reason that you were selling the idea, they all
follow through, right, It all like it continues. People don't.
People don't suspend their disbelief and think that we should
be very race conscious in some settings but then not
in other settings. And so when the left start selling
racial you know, uh, justice as a reason to do
(06:21):
countless things, it follows through. And I think, if you're
being honest, a lot of the like uh, George Floyd's
stuff ended up being like the logical conclusion of something
that you can see. Right. Obama would talk all the
time about this. You've seen this when he's given speeches,
and like lectured the left about like identity politics and
being crazy leftists, right. I think a lot of that
(06:45):
is he knew that he was pushing this DEI stuff.
And then the logical end point is these marches in
the street being like defund the police, that they're racist,
and it's like the people who set off like they
like release the virus are sitting there thinking, whoa we
like like racial justice to like explain our tax policy
or our giveaway policy or a spending policy, like we
(07:08):
didn't mean like get rid of the police. And people
are like, well, you told us that like racial disparities
mean racism, and so like the police are doing things
that are racially disparate, so therefore they're racists. We should
get rid of them. You could just see the people
be like, oh my god, it escaped containment. We didn't
mean that. I think that's probably the right way to
think about it.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
And also in thinking about it, I mean it's kind
of a straight smart strategy because if you're sort of
pressuring these companies to build out their DEI department, I
mean most of the people who are going to be
in those roles, I mean that's the left, the left wing,
you know, way of thinking. So they're going to be
filled with progressives and leftists. So it's it's it's actually
a smart way to get a foothold with some of
(07:45):
these companies, right.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So yeah, yeah, I mean it's like it's like it's
like what you see with some of the gender stuff now,
where people will say, well, we need to have like
a gender equity, we need to have a transgender department
at this university. Well, all you're doing is when you
start a whole new department and staff it with all
your people, you give yourself like more boots on the ground, right,
And so you're exactly right. The DEI department starts small,
(08:08):
and then they grow, and then they grow, and then
they grow, and then one of those people becomes the
CEO of the company and now all of a sudden,
like you've gotten control of a place.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
How significant was the death of George Floyd, because I
mean that really set a lot of things off in
the country after his death from soft onre grime policies
to you know the rest of it. So how significant
do you think that was in pushing these companies to
the left and also you know, forcing these companies to
embrace DEI.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
You know, it's funny. I actually don't know that it
had a lot if anything. I think it probably was
like didn't help them on the DEI front. Like you
got to understand that my core belief about companies and
why you see like products being taken off store shelves
(09:00):
is the thing I care about the most is that
they're constantly just negotiating with the pressures that they're under.
And so I think, you know, the this goes back
to something we were talking about earlier. I do think
that that I'll get back to the George Floyd point
I promised. But what you saw during the Obama years
was also this like negotiation of corporate America between like
(09:22):
the burnie crowd that wants to confiscate all of corporate
America and like turn it into like, you know, a
government run institution and the social justice crowd that just
wants to take thirty percent of the budget of corporate
America and turn it into crazy social promotion and stuff, right.
And you could see that with the George Floyd protests,
where like there's radicals in the streets that are basically
(09:43):
like hair down city government, defund the police, and any
company that is like not towing the line, we're gonna
like blast and if you're not taking down your ads,
if you're not posting black squares on the internet. Right.
And I think in a way that crowd like scale
corporate America because they thought they'd cut a deal where
if I, like, if I give a huge DEI department,
(10:06):
then like the burning crowd won't come for me. Does
that make sense? Yes? And I think that the And
here's this gets back to our modern day. If corporate
America is just responding to pressure, then back then they
were importing all the Obama people because they were looking
for the pressure to only come from the left under
Obama and Clinton. And they're negotiating only between the Obama
(10:28):
Tony West. I'm going to work at a company, but
talk about diversity and the burning crowd. That's like, I'm
gonna talk about diversity and take your company from you, right, Like,
that's who they were negotiating between. And the right was silent. Right.
And so are we surprised that corporate America just starts
to like only make products for the left and only
higher leftists. Right. What you've seen in the most recent
(10:48):
set of years is starting with state ags, some private
groups and now the Trump administration. Why is corporate America
snapping back to the middle. Is now there's like an
aggressive pressure from the right to drop your DEI programs,
stop doing weird esg stuff, stop banning products, stop trying
to ban gas stoves, stop trying to be weirdos, just
(11:12):
like be the middle of America, right and bam, all
of a sudden, Corporate America sure is talking like they're
now in the middle. Why because now there's pressure on
the right and there's pressure on the left, and so
where does corporate Americas start to go somewhere in the
middle right? Like it's just suddenly, it's like conservatives have
finally learned that the only thing corporate America can listen to,
(11:34):
if we're being honest, is pressure. Whether it's a boycott
or whether it's a lawsuit. They only respond to pressure.
And now that there's consistent pressure from the right on
these issues, you're seeing corporate America start to at least
try to hue back to the middle. And that's a
tremendous thing.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Well, you know, we saw some of these sort of
you know, I guess you would call them.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I guess they're boycotts.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
But you know pressure campaigns, you know, getting a lot
of bad press, and you know a lot of social
media activity with things like bud Light and Target and Disney.
Why do you think those specific pressure campaigns worked? And
then kind of what message do you think that's sent
to the rest of corporate America.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I think they worked because it was the first time
that corporate America was viewing a lot of the DEI
in particular stuff as not free. But you got to
understand that like the sales paid. Like I can't explain
enough to you that. Like Eric Holder, you know, he
was the head of he was Attorney General under Obama.
(12:41):
He has this business where he goes to companies in
the last few years and he charges them like fifteen
hundred dollars an hour. It's probably more like two thousand
dollars an hour now because of you know how the
world works, telling him about how there's all these benefits
to building out diversity and all these programs, and it
was working. Biden, He's making all this money. He goes
(13:01):
to a company and tells him to be more woke
than he cashes a huge check. Well, nowadays we call
it getting holdered because then they get sued by a
state or now they're going to get sued by by
the Department of Justice, and then he's going to come
back in and be like, hey, I can defend you.
I can make more money. Right, there's this whole industry
of people telling them do the woke thing. It's an
(13:23):
unalloyed good. You'll get all this positive praise from the
Washington Post and the New York Times. You'll be lauded,
You'll get to be go to high five people at
your country club, and it won't cost you anything. So
just keep doing it right and then bam, bud light happens.
You get Target, you get some of these other things.
And so the first time these official these people and
(13:45):
these companies who aren't radicals are like, wait, I did
that thing. You said it was going to be all upside,
no downside, but now I'm like getting this massive hit
to my bottom line. I should have never done it
in the first place. Didn't get me anything. This is dumb.
And so I think they worked because they showed actual,
(14:10):
like belief from most people that they just want people
to make products for them and not just like lecture
at them. So I mean what I mean the various
ones that worked were where the core demographic of the
company just didn't match the slot that was being thrown
at them by the heads of the offices, right like
(14:32):
you know, and so you saw people get really really
mad because something totally out of whack was happening. And
Corporate America responded because it was the first time they'd
ever felt pain as a result of something that they
were told was like a freebie.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
We've got a quick commercial break more with oahe Skinner
on the other side, what percentage of these companies do
you think were, like the CEO actually believed these things
versus feeling like they were sort of being held hostage
by sort of employees and like the movement so to speak.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, yeah, is the line I keep being told by
lots of different people, especially when I complained to them
about like why they're removing products from store shelves, is
that about seventy percent of companies just want to go
along and get along, and so they'll they'll they'll do
what the left wants when they are left in charge
to a certain degree, and they'll do it the right ones,
but they're not like committed, right, And then I've heard
(15:29):
that like thirty percent of companies are like either wholly
taken over by the DEI clan or the CEO believes
it right, Like, I don't know if you guys saw this.
Like Robbie Starbuck has done just a huge amount great yeah,
and when he talks about how like Harley Davidson was
one that he that was really important to him because
the customer base was conservative, and the CEO is like this,
(15:52):
like euro you know, like you're a weirdo who was
like trying to convince everybody that like climate change was
going to end the world and that the only way
Harley Davidson could survive is by stopping selling the product
that everybody bought, and instead they would just make like
electric bikes. That's That's an example of like the CEO
is a believer, he's in the thirty percent. Right. There's
(16:12):
other companies that have flipped under pressure from states to
Robbie Starbuck, where like they kind of like you could
just tell that they were just happy that somebody finally
gave them an excuse to tell their DEI department to
shove off, right, that somebody gave them the right to
go down to their HR department and say like they reed. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
So the comment that so one of the state ags
(16:33):
w who was pushing back in this. He'll often refer
to it as like, I'm not anti business. I think
that the pressure I bring is, you know, let the
pressure set them free, right, Like when I bring pressure
on a company, it allows them to just make the
choices that they know are writ for their customers, freed
from the belief that they might be called out for
being a bigot or a racist or all of the
(16:55):
things that you and I have seen people get called.
He's like, I just want them to be free to
just make business choice is right, and surprise, like, business
choices means that they're just like going to keep guestos,
that they're going to still sell gas grills, that they're
going to like stop doing weird stuff and start just
like meeting their customers, right, And so he always refers
to as like the pressure like I'm gonna the pressure
will set them free. Right. It's not me being negative
(17:18):
on corporate America. It's me wanting corporate America to be better.
So take us.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Through, as the executive director of Alliance for Consumers, take
us through. I guess some of the craziest examples you've
seen of companies just pushing like ridiculous, woke things that
even you've been like, whoa, Okay, that's you know, that's
out there.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Well, you know it's funny. Is a lot of the
A lot of it, just I mean you've seen I
would say the craziest ones are the things that you've seen,
whether it's you know, bud Light deciding that notwithstanding in
their core demographic, they're going to become like the LGBTQ
hotbed of America, right, or it's places like you know
(17:59):
or what Target did where you're just like, you know,
they should know the demographic their shops at their stores
and that they're not interested in seeing you know, trans
kids swimsuits. But what I think is actually like more
interesting is the craziness of the government because the government
stuff is like what you're now seeing is governments trying
(18:20):
to push companies pass where the companies even want to go.
And so you've seen this, like I don't know if
you've seen this in California now, like you can't buy
gas lawnmowers anymore. Have you seen this? I don't think
I actually have. Oh see, this is beautiful, like when
you live in like real America, they're busy in Florida.
We're free there, yeah, exactly right, right, So you know
I live in Arizona and that's close to California, so
(18:43):
like we catch the you know, we catch the blowback
that comes out of there. You know, they're busy doing
things like banning gas powered lawnmowers and leaf flowers in
the name of climate change. Right, and so now you
see these videos on the Internet of people walking through
like a home depot and the cheapest thing they can
buy as like a normal like riding lawnmower that used
(19:04):
to cost like, let's just say a thousand dollars is
now like a four thousand dollars thing that depending upon
where you live, you might have to charge it in
the middle of mowing your lawn, right, all in the
name of like ESG and you're just sitting there being
like you're literally making everybody's lives worse. It costs more
and does a worse job. Right. It's like the theme
that you see all the time, whether it's messing with
(19:27):
your dishwasher, messing with your refrigerator, what's the outcome? The
government officials are making it cost more do a worst job,
cost more, and do a worse job. And what I
think is the part that is like it won't mean
as much to your listeners, but it means a lot
to me. Is twenty years ago when the government officials
would do this junk companies and people would fight it.
(19:49):
Where I see the DEI and the ESG stuff really
doing this like dirty, dangerous thing is it's making companies
roll over and agree to remove products and agree to
do stuff in the name of the climate or anti
racism or any of these other silly things. And so
(20:10):
that leaves like a group like mine to actually yell
about how this makes people's lives worse. You used to
be able to rely on somebody at a company to say, well,
I still want to be able to sell something to
a person, but now they've been so scared by the
Left that they just agree. I mean, another one that
I'll say is just bonkers and will make everybody's life
terrible is California has now passed this rule that says,
(20:32):
if you want to operate trucks in California, you have
to make your entire fleet zero mission trucks. What is
a zero mission like freight truck It means that you're
supposed to have, like a truck, like an eighteen wheeler
that hauls stuff all across America, be battery powered. Right.
I don't know if you. I mean, I grew up
in the middle of America. These trucks are limited by
(20:53):
how much they weigh, and the battery is weigh a ton,
which now means that the truck's going to carry like
half as much and have to charge it all the time.
Fifornia is busy trying to make it so that you
can only have those trucks if you drive anywhere in California.
Your truck's in Nebraska, and I will also have to
be zero mission long haul trucks. And the trucking companies
agreed to it. They like wrote this special agreement. You're
(21:15):
lacking that they wrote this special agreement with the Biden
administration saying, even if your rule is struck down in court,
we agree to implement it anyway in the name of
like climate justice. Right. And so what you've got is
like everyone, like the stuff at your store comes on
these trucks, Like now it's going to get more expensive,
it's going to take longer to get there, it's more
expensive and does a less good job, and the companies
(21:35):
were like, sounds good. Right. So that's the stuff that
just like blows my mind is when these officials look
like they're just trying to make your life worse. You know,
I don't know. Did you see did you see all
the articles they're like right at the tail end of
the Biden administration about how good life could be with
that air conditioning? Did you see this? Yes, which I
(21:56):
fundamentally disagree. I love it, of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I'm you know, I'm the type of person who like
lives in Florida and my permit's freezing so I can
sleep with a comforter, Like yeah, great, great, Right, I'm bad.
I'm one of the worst offenders we love.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
In America, I know so. But when you're in the media,
you know this. When you see the first article that
says how great it is to live with that air conditioning,
you're like, that's weird. When you see the second one,
you're like, wait a second. When you see the third, fourth, fifth,
and they talk about how like the fight for climate
change includes getting rid of things like air conditioners, all
of a sudden, you have this moment where you're like, oh,
(22:33):
my God, the reason you officials are raising the price
of air conditioners or banning They banned the HFCs that
go into a lot of these air conditioners, and I
don't know, you probably haven't experienced this. Nowadays, a lot
of air conditioning companies won't repair your air conditioner. That
just make you buy a whole new system because they
can't get the replacement chemicals. And so when something leaks,
you now have to buy like a new thirty thousand
(22:54):
dollars air conditioning system, depending upon where you live. And
all of a sudden, you have this moment you're like,
oh my god, that's not like a negative side effect
from these officials perspective. You kind of want air conditioning
to be unreachable? Why do they want us to live
like that? Though?
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Because you know, I remember, like even I can't remember
the exact headlines, but they were also basically like you know,
breadlines are great, you.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Know what I mean. It's like yeah, yeah, no exactly, but.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Like why do they want us to What's what's behind that?
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Like why do they want us to live like this
is okay? Well now we explain the ya, the why
I'm home? They so you may you may have heard
this phrase net zero. I mean, I'm sure you've heard that, right,
people in zero? Okay, net zero means net zero by
twenty thirty or twenty fifty, depending on who you're talking to. Okay,
it actually means that you have to hit at zero
(23:43):
as defined by the UN like EIA, like energy group, Right,
they have charts in order to hit at zero that
means net zero new carbon emissions. They literally will say, okay, well,
in order to hit at zero, that means you're allowed
to have x percent of your emissions come from this,
and this and this. It literally means that you have
(24:04):
to get rid of all of the natural gas powered
fired power plants in America. All the gas stations have
to go away, Your ships in your harbors, and the cranes,
they all have to become electric. The semitrucks electric in
order to hit at zero, like, they have math that
they have to solve for. And so when you buy
this idea that the world will end unless we go
(24:28):
net zero by twenty thirty, once you accept that you
have to get people to give up air conditioning, You
have to get people to give up the gas powered cars.
You have to get people to make all of these
changes and probably get rid of things like dishwashers, right,
get rid of things like a like a refrigerator that
is too big, right from the last perspective, because otherwise
(24:52):
your math doesn't math. As one of my friends says, like,
you just can't get there, and so what do they know?
We're never going to get there though. See, this is
where this is where you and I can have that
discussion of maybe some chunk of them are just burnie
people who think that like government needs to control all
of this stuff, and so if you can, like you know,
there's that crowd, and that is in my mind, right, Okay,
(25:14):
so you and I kind of share that mind, but
there's like a whole nother crowd that like they've been
told they grow up in California, they've been told in
school that the climate change. Like I had somebody at
my house the other day who said that they are
terrified of climate change. Number one issue climate change? Right,
did you come out and look? My immediate reaction was,
what are using number What are you doing about climate change?
(25:35):
And the number one thing they're doing about climate change
is composting, So like we clearly have an issue where
like the thing they're doing doesn't have anything to do
with the thing that like, the life's got some problems, okay,
But at the end of the day, there is a
cohort of people who like they've been told that the
world's ending, that they have to do X to make
the world not end, and so they're going to buy
damn it, do X, right. But I do think that
(25:57):
a lot of this does stem from like control. And
you know, if you tell people that they can't use
too much. I mean, look, we made a video called
twenty thirty and it's all about what it will be
like in California and net zero world. And you see
that the government like meters how much electricity you can use,
You have to use only so much hot water because
you give basically are allowed an allotment of like carbon
(26:19):
emissions on a given day. And so if your kid
takes a hot shower, you can't take a hot shower,
your lights turn off at the end of your day,
your electric car, you can't have a fan at the office.
So the company can hit their net zero targets, right,
like it just it is to your mind and my mind,
nothing gives the government more ability to control every aspect
of your life than telling you exactly how much electricity
(26:41):
and power you're allowed to use. You ask somebody who
comes from Venezuela and you tell them what the ESG
people are pushing, and their immediate reaction is that's how
they control your life, because that's what they did in Venezuela. Right.
There's another component of people that I think is just like, well,
this is how I'm going to sell climate change, and
you and I are like, you're not can actually do that?
And they're like, no, no, but we need to try. So
(27:03):
I don't know, it's a mix.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Yeah, I'm with you because remember even AOC's former chief
of staff, I can't remember his name, but he basically
said that.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
The Green New Deal was a how.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Do you control the entire economy type of thing, right, I.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Mean okay, So, like you know, it's like we're talking
just the two of us, nobody else is listening. You know.
I think that explains a lot of this, right, Like,
but I do think you have these people who aren't
thinking about the logical endpoint, and I just want to
give some credit that there are chunks of them out there.
I mean I have heard. Okay, so you asked about
the craziest thing in corporate America. I finally remember my
craziest thing in corporate America. I have heard from friends
(27:44):
that they were sitting in meetings at giant, mega death
corps that sell lots of stuff. Okay. So like, imagine
a big box store that like you or I have
been inside, okay, and somebody was legitimately advocating that to
meet their net zero target, they should stop selling beef
products in the grocery at their store. And somebody else
is like, people like buying hamburger at our store, We're
(28:08):
just going to remove it because then it's good for
the climate, because you know. The little reveal is that
the left thinks that all the cows should go away
because they can't make their math math with the cows,
just to be clear. But there's literally sitting there and
a person who works for a company is advocating removing
all of the beef products from their entire store all
(28:29):
across America in the name of climate justice basically, And
this person is like slack John looking at them, being like,
why on earth would we stop selling something to customers
that they like and that we have right, you know,
But that was a discussion in corporate America in twenty
twenty four because of these there's people who think of
(28:50):
this ESG stuff, And that's not the AOC staffer. That's
somebody who's been infected by the bug that the AOC
staff are sent over the wall, right, and they're like
advocating for like a very anti consumer move at a
very consumer facing company. And it was like not laughed
out of the room. I mean, it was eventually laughed
out of the room, but it took a while.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
How much do you think this past election was just
Americans being like, I want to return to normalcy, you know,
because the past four years have been totally abnormal, as
you talked about, oh you don't need air conditioning, you know,
readlines are great, or you know, men can be women,
women can be men, you know what I mean, Like
(29:30):
just we've lived in a totally bizarre world for like
four years, and so how much of this past election
do you think was just like, get off my lawn,
I want to be normal again, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I think it's I think it describes everything. Look, the
vast majority of Americans don't think of themselves as political animals.
They just want they just want life. To be good
and normal, right, And if you buy what they were
saying before, you know, if you buy the narratives about
the last election, they are two elections as ago. People
(30:01):
were voting for Joe Biden because they thought he was
like a return to like a bygone era and normalcy.
And what they got to your point was bands on
gas stoves and like making your dishwasher worse, and you know,
boys and girls' locker rooms and the I think a
logical conclusion is whatever I voted for, it's not this.
(30:23):
I just want, like life to be normal. I want
to be able to go to the store and buy
Hamburger and drive my car that is powered by gasoline
and then go and actually have and like cook it
at home without the government telling me what I can
and can't use. Right. I think that really sums up
a lot of people's views, and I think it's a
(30:44):
good thing. And I think that the pressure that you're
seeing under the Trump administration against DEI and a lot
of these things at the federal level is going to
be so comforting to people because it'll manifest itself in
just like like life will just look normal at stores again,
which would be really nice.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
We've got a quick commercial break more with Oah Skinner
on the other side, we've seen them kind of come
out the gate already and with a lot of these
DEI executive orders and really sending the message that you know,
this nonsense is over. We're going back to a meritocracy.
We're going back to normalcy and common sense. You know,
(31:25):
what sort of long lasting changes do you think the
Trump administration can make and are they Are they going
about it the right way right now? And what else
would you like to see from them to make those
longer lasting changes.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I mean, they have the ability to make huge changes
to the extent that it will be the first time
with the like host Students for Fair Admissions versus Harvard,
which is a huge Supreme Court case that we haven't
talked about, is really important. Now. The entire Department of
Justice and the entire White House has US Supreme Court
(31:59):
case case law saying that, like, you cannot discriminate in
America based on race, even if you're Harvard, and even
if you're trying to do it in a like altruistic
way in your own words, right, No, you're not allowed
to discriminate based on race, full stop. America gets to
go back to being like a colorblind society. Now with
that in their hand, they finally have the ability. It'll
(32:21):
be the first Republican administration with the will and the
law on their side to basically create pressure on corporate America.
And the number one thing they can do is just
follow through on the eos and investigate companies. You know,
you asked question earlier that I didn't answer, which is
when one company gets a boycott, what message does that
(32:42):
send to the other market participants? They all immediately change
their behavior. So if one or two companies in an
industry get taken out into the school yard and just
like you know, metaphorically, you know, get smacked around by
the law of anti discrimination law in America using the
Apartment of Justice and the Department Civil Rights and made
an example of for the crazy stuff that they've been doing.
(33:06):
The rest of them are going to stop it. They're
going to just shut it down, right. Their lawyers going
to walk around and be like, we're done, We're not
doing any of that anymore. And the more of that
that happens, the more corporate America gets locked into the
middle not being liberal, not being conservative, which Frankly, that's
a good place for it to be because it's supposed
to sell things to both types of people in America.
(33:26):
And so the you know, what I just want to
see is this the cadence just keeps going right because
it's been a focus at the beginning, and now just
get it implemented. And the more pressure it more, the
more it sets corporate America free. And I think if
there's four years of pressure, I don't think you're ever
going to see corporate America writ large go crazy to
(33:47):
the left anymore because we will have trained them that
there's pressure on the right and there's pressure on the left.
And when there's two types of pressure, you just chart
a course through the middle. Well, from your lips to
God's ears. So let's the press. Yeah, I mean I'm
looking forward to it, you know, And I just I
just want people to like be able to buy things
from companies that aren't trying to tell them how to
(34:08):
live their lives. That's a good thing if we can
get there, And.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
That's kind of what you guys are doing at the
Alliance for Consumers.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Yeah, we fight really hard to just look, there's there's
a long time where companies stopped fighting back against crazy
stuff and they started being the implementers. And at the
end of the day, consumers just want, you know, they
want simple things. They want to be able to go
to the store without getting mugged. They want there to
be things on the store shelves when they get there
that haven't been robbed. And they would like to not
(34:35):
be socially lectured while they're at the store. And they
would like the government to let them buy this kind
of grill or that, this kind of sink or that
without it being entirely dictated by AOC's chief of staff.
And if you can just let them do that, they'll
vote with their feet and they'll buy the things they want,
and they'll live the lives they want. If you live
in a coastal enclave of California, you'll buy a tiny
(34:56):
electric car and the super expensive dishwasher, and you know,
maybe you'll go without air conditioning. And if you live
in Plano, Texas, you'll buy a suburban for your four kids,
and you'll buy a normal house with normal cars and
normal dishwashers. Because that's the life you're choosing to live.
And that's fine. I'm fine with a crazy person in
coastal California live in a crazy life. They're allowed to
(35:17):
be weird. But I think most people who live in
Eden Prairie, Minnesota or Plano, Texas should also be allowed
to like buy a car and have three kids. I
just think that's like a normal thing to do. Yeah,
like I don't want to be weird. Yes, most Americans,
just like most Americans are busy with their kids and
their lives, and they're not thinking about how they could
(35:37):
squeeze an extra two percent efficiency out of their dishwasher
and exchange for an extra three thousand dollars. That's a
Nancy Pelosi problem. That's not a family in Plano, Texas problem.
And along the way, the government got confused and they
started making it. You know, we call it mandated progressive
lifestyle choices. They're just trying to like mandate the Nancy
Pelosi Marine California crazy lifestyle to the rest of the
(36:01):
country rather than just letting those people be them and
the rest of the country be normal America.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Waite Skinner was great to meet you recently and great
to have you on the podcast. I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
This has been fun.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
That was Waged Skinner Appreciate him for taking the time
to come on the show. Appreciate you guys at home
for listening every Tuesday and Thursday, but you can listen
throughout the week until next time.
I was at a conference recently and I heard my
next guest speak and I thought to myself, let's get
him on the show. He was discussing Corporate America's embrace
of diversity, equity and inclusion. But he was saying things
I hadn't heard before, and it was just different angles
that I'm used to hearing. And that's what I try
to do on this podcast, is just to get different angles,
to get different guests, to keep things interesting, but also
(00:22):
just so that we can all continue learning together. But
what he was talking about is Obama's role former Price
in Obama's role in pushing these companies to the left,
how his people infiltrated Corporate America and turned them woke.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
So we'll discuss that.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
We'll discuss what happened, and we'll also discuss the latest
course correction now that President Trump and his administration all
these DEI executive orders and you know, pushing America's companies
back to the right. So we'll discuss that course correction.
How long will it last? What do we need to know?
So stay tuned for oh Skinner. He's the executive director
of Alliance for Consumers. He also previously worked for the
(01:00):
Arizona Attorney General. He was the state's lead council in
the United States Supreme Court. So stay tuned for O.
Wag Skinner.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, O Aged, it's great to have you on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I recently met you, and you know, we're having discussions
about some of this DEI stuff, and so I was like,
I got to get them on my podcast. So I
appreciate you making the time, and I look forward to
this conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
This is gonna be fun. It will be fun.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Okay, So let's start with because you you said something
which I hadn't really given much thought about prior to
you saying it. But explain walk us through the role
that the Obama administration and Obama world played in pushing
these companies to woke and pushing these companies towards DEI.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah. I mean, I think what's really important to understand
about corporate America at a basic level is that they
just respond to incentives and pressures, especially pressures, and you know,
you have to go back in time to what feels
like forever ago. But you know, Obama wins, he's the president.
He starts putting all this pressure on corporate America to
do diversity to do all these things that we now
(02:07):
know as is DEI. And then he gets re elected
and so especially in his second term, you have all
of this exodus of Obama era officials and lawyers and
agency heads, and they're all going into corporate America. Right.
Like one of the things that's easy to forget is
that the Obama people all got jobs at places like
(02:28):
Google or you know, Tony West is like a great example.
He ended up going to Uber and being the head
of government affairs, and it's like you can literally follow
the trajectory of like DEEI in America. One of my
friends says, by following this Tony West. And so they
all leave to go to corporate America, and they're busy
telling corporate America that the way to be safe from
the Obama administration is to just get ahead of them.
(02:50):
Do a little bit more diversity, do a little bit
more eesg, do a little bit more, a little bit more.
You stay one step ahead of the government, and then
the government doesn't smack you, doesn't find you, doesn't sue you,
and then we all forget that. Like all of those
smart people thought that Hillary Clinton was going to be president,
and so as the second term of Obama is ending.
(03:11):
They're not pulling back into neutral, They're not getting worried
about maybe having a direction shift in Washington. They're like
doubling and tripling down. They're hiring as many officials as
they possibly can from the Obama team and people they
think are going to be favorable from the Clinton world.
They're just like really digging in and then Trump wins. Right.
So the easy thing to understands you look at the
(03:33):
world now is that all of the seeds for what
we see in corporate America were driven by this belief
from corporate America that the way to make the pressure
stop from Washington was to hire the Obama people, who then,
of course, as you know, they just import all of
what they were going to do in the government. But
now they have control over the companies, right, so they're
(03:55):
just pushing the companies to do everything that they would
have done had they still been in government. Right. So
that's I think really to understand where it came from,
you have to understand this like arc of what they
thought was going to be twelve years of you know,
strong push from Washington with democratic presidents to do all
(04:15):
of what we now know of as Dea Well.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And what's interesting is, you know, we know that Obama
made race a you know, obviously being the first black president,
but really just a lot of race initiatives and really
pushing sort of that racial division in the country. I
mean the irony is when he left, I think it
was even CNN said that, you know, fifty four percent
of Americans believed that race relations had gotten worse under
(04:40):
his time, so obviously didn't you know, I guess he
did to do an effective job driving people apart. Was
that just for political reasons or what do you think
the strategy for Obama was with all of that?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
You know, that's hard. I always people ask me sometimes
whether the government officials are doing something for political reasons
or for you know, for their own ultras degreesment. I
think it's always a mix of things. You know, It's
hard when you are pushing this narrative for such a
long time on the left about where so many of
(05:13):
their policies are are hinged on like social justice, racial justice,
all these things, right, Like, they hang so many of
their policies on those things, which you know, it's the
easy answer is to say, once you start selling something
for certain reasons. You can't just sell half the package.
(05:36):
If you're telling people that environmental justice is so important
because minority communities are hardest hit. If you're telling people
that you need to have different tax policies, different spending
policies all in the name of racial or environmental or
all these other things, right, it's also really hard to
then try and be like, but we shouldn't be promoting
people in corporate America, and we should like, once you've
sold part of the package, the rest of the ideas
(05:58):
follow if that makes sense, even if they weren't like
the reason that you were selling the idea, they all
follow through, right, It all like it continues. People don't.
People don't suspend their disbelief and think that we should
be very race conscious in some settings but then not
in other settings. And so when the left start selling
racial you know, uh, justice as a reason to do
(06:21):
countless things, it follows through. And I think, if you're
being honest, a lot of the like uh, George Floyd's
stuff ended up being like the logical conclusion of something
that you can see. Right. Obama would talk all the
time about this. You've seen this when he's given speeches,
and like lectured the left about like identity politics and
being crazy leftists, right. I think a lot of that
(06:45):
is he knew that he was pushing this DEI stuff.
And then the logical end point is these marches in
the street being like defund the police, that they're racist,
and it's like the people who set off like they
like release the virus are sitting there thinking, whoa we
like like racial justice to like explain our tax policy
or our giveaway policy or a spending policy, like we
(07:08):
didn't mean like get rid of the police. And people
are like, well, you told us that like racial disparities
mean racism, and so like the police are doing things
that are racially disparate, so therefore they're racists. We should
get rid of them. You could just see the people
be like, oh my god, it escaped containment. We didn't
mean that. I think that's probably the right way to
think about it.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
And also in thinking about it, I mean it's kind
of a straight smart strategy because if you're sort of
pressuring these companies to build out their DEI department, I
mean most of the people who are going to be
in those roles, I mean that's the left, the left wing,
you know, way of thinking. So they're going to be
filled with progressives and leftists. So it's it's it's actually
a smart way to get a foothold with some of
(07:45):
these companies, right.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So yeah, yeah, I mean it's like it's like it's
like what you see with some of the gender stuff now,
where people will say, well, we need to have like
a gender equity, we need to have a transgender department
at this university. Well, all you're doing is when you
start a whole new department and staff it with all
your people, you give yourself like more boots on the ground, right,
And so you're exactly right. The DEI department starts small,
(08:08):
and then they grow, and then they grow, and then
they grow, and then one of those people becomes the
CEO of the company and now all of a sudden,
like you've gotten control of a place.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
How significant was the death of George Floyd, because I
mean that really set a lot of things off in
the country after his death from soft onre grime policies
to you know the rest of it. So how significant
do you think that was in pushing these companies to
the left and also you know, forcing these companies to
embrace DEI.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
You know, it's funny. I actually don't know that it
had a lot if anything. I think it probably was
like didn't help them on the DEI front. Like you
got to understand that my core belief about companies and
why you see like products being taken off store shelves
(09:00):
is the thing I care about the most is that
they're constantly just negotiating with the pressures that they're under.
And so I think, you know, the this goes back
to something we were talking about earlier. I do think
that that I'll get back to the George Floyd point
I promised. But what you saw during the Obama years
was also this like negotiation of corporate America between like
(09:22):
the burnie crowd that wants to confiscate all of corporate
America and like turn it into like, you know, a
government run institution and the social justice crowd that just
wants to take thirty percent of the budget of corporate
America and turn it into crazy social promotion and stuff, right.
And you could see that with the George Floyd protests,
where like there's radicals in the streets that are basically
(09:43):
like hair down city government, defund the police, and any
company that is like not towing the line, we're gonna
like blast and if you're not taking down your ads,
if you're not posting black squares on the internet. Right.
And I think in a way that crowd like scale
corporate America because they thought they'd cut a deal where
if I, like, if I give a huge DEI department,
(10:06):
then like the burning crowd won't come for me. Does
that make sense? Yes? And I think that the And
here's this gets back to our modern day. If corporate
America is just responding to pressure, then back then they
were importing all the Obama people because they were looking
for the pressure to only come from the left under
Obama and Clinton. And they're negotiating only between the Obama
(10:28):
Tony West. I'm going to work at a company, but
talk about diversity and the burning crowd. That's like, I'm
gonna talk about diversity and take your company from you, right, Like,
that's who they were negotiating between. And the right was silent. Right.
And so are we surprised that corporate America just starts
to like only make products for the left and only
higher leftists. Right. What you've seen in the most recent
(10:48):
set of years is starting with state ags, some private
groups and now the Trump administration. Why is corporate America
snapping back to the middle. Is now there's like an
aggressive pressure from the right to drop your DEI programs,
stop doing weird esg stuff, stop banning products, stop trying
to ban gas stoves, stop trying to be weirdos, just
(11:12):
like be the middle of America, right and bam, all
of a sudden, Corporate America sure is talking like they're
now in the middle. Why because now there's pressure on
the right and there's pressure on the left, and so
where does corporate Americas start to go somewhere in the
middle right? Like it's just suddenly, it's like conservatives have
finally learned that the only thing corporate America can listen to,
(11:34):
if we're being honest, is pressure. Whether it's a boycott
or whether it's a lawsuit. They only respond to pressure.
And now that there's consistent pressure from the right on
these issues, you're seeing corporate America start to at least
try to hue back to the middle. And that's a
tremendous thing.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Well, you know, we saw some of these sort of
you know, I guess you would call them.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I guess they're boycotts.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
But you know pressure campaigns, you know, getting a lot
of bad press, and you know a lot of social
media activity with things like bud Light and Target and Disney.
Why do you think those specific pressure campaigns worked? And
then kind of what message do you think that's sent
to the rest of corporate America.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I think they worked because it was the first time
that corporate America was viewing a lot of the DEI
in particular stuff as not free. But you got to
understand that like the sales paid. Like I can't explain
enough to you that. Like Eric Holder, you know, he
was the head of he was Attorney General under Obama.
(12:41):
He has this business where he goes to companies in
the last few years and he charges them like fifteen
hundred dollars an hour. It's probably more like two thousand
dollars an hour now because of you know how the
world works, telling him about how there's all these benefits
to building out diversity and all these programs, and it
was working. Biden, He's making all this money. He goes
(13:01):
to a company and tells him to be more woke
than he cashes a huge check. Well, nowadays we call
it getting holdered because then they get sued by a
state or now they're going to get sued by by
the Department of Justice, and then he's going to come
back in and be like, hey, I can defend you.
I can make more money. Right, there's this whole industry
of people telling them do the woke thing. It's an
(13:23):
unalloyed good. You'll get all this positive praise from the
Washington Post and the New York Times. You'll be lauded,
You'll get to be go to high five people at
your country club, and it won't cost you anything. So
just keep doing it right and then bam, bud light happens.
You get Target, you get some of these other things.
And so the first time these official these people and
(13:45):
these companies who aren't radicals are like, wait, I did
that thing. You said it was going to be all upside,
no downside, but now I'm like getting this massive hit
to my bottom line. I should have never done it
in the first place. Didn't get me anything. This is dumb.
And so I think they worked because they showed actual,
(14:10):
like belief from most people that they just want people
to make products for them and not just like lecture
at them. So I mean what I mean the various
ones that worked were where the core demographic of the
company just didn't match the slot that was being thrown
at them by the heads of the offices, right like
(14:32):
you know, and so you saw people get really really
mad because something totally out of whack was happening. And
Corporate America responded because it was the first time they'd
ever felt pain as a result of something that they
were told was like a freebie.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
We've got a quick commercial break more with oahe Skinner
on the other side, what percentage of these companies do
you think were, like the CEO actually believed these things
versus feeling like they were sort of being held hostage
by sort of employees and like the movement so to speak.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, yeah, is the line I keep being told by
lots of different people, especially when I complained to them
about like why they're removing products from store shelves, is
that about seventy percent of companies just want to go
along and get along, and so they'll they'll they'll do
what the left wants when they are left in charge
to a certain degree, and they'll do it the right ones,
but they're not like committed, right, And then I've heard
(15:29):
that like thirty percent of companies are like either wholly
taken over by the DEI clan or the CEO believes
it right, Like, I don't know if you guys saw this.
Like Robbie Starbuck has done just a huge amount great yeah,
and when he talks about how like Harley Davidson was
one that he that was really important to him because
the customer base was conservative, and the CEO is like this,
(15:52):
like euro you know, like you're a weirdo who was
like trying to convince everybody that like climate change was
going to end the world and that the only way
Harley Davidson could survive is by stopping selling the product
that everybody bought, and instead they would just make like
electric bikes. That's That's an example of like the CEO
is a believer, he's in the thirty percent. Right. There's
(16:12):
other companies that have flipped under pressure from states to
Robbie Starbuck, where like they kind of like you could
just tell that they were just happy that somebody finally
gave them an excuse to tell their DEI department to
shove off, right, that somebody gave them the right to
go down to their HR department and say like they reed. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
So the comment that so one of the state ags
(16:33):
w who was pushing back in this. He'll often refer
to it as like, I'm not anti business. I think
that the pressure I bring is, you know, let the
pressure set them free, right, Like when I bring pressure
on a company, it allows them to just make the
choices that they know are writ for their customers, freed
from the belief that they might be called out for
being a bigot or a racist or all of the
(16:55):
things that you and I have seen people get called.
He's like, I just want them to be free to
just make business choice is right, and surprise, like, business
choices means that they're just like going to keep guestos,
that they're going to still sell gas grills, that they're
going to like stop doing weird stuff and start just
like meeting their customers, right, And so he always refers
to as like the pressure like I'm gonna the pressure
will set them free. Right. It's not me being negative
(17:18):
on corporate America. It's me wanting corporate America to be better.
So take us.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Through, as the executive director of Alliance for Consumers, take
us through. I guess some of the craziest examples you've
seen of companies just pushing like ridiculous, woke things that
even you've been like, whoa, Okay, that's you know, that's
out there.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Well, you know it's funny. Is a lot of the
A lot of it, just I mean you've seen I
would say the craziest ones are the things that you've seen,
whether it's you know, bud Light deciding that notwithstanding in
their core demographic, they're going to become like the LGBTQ
hotbed of America, right, or it's places like you know
(17:59):
or what Target did where you're just like, you know,
they should know the demographic their shops at their stores
and that they're not interested in seeing you know, trans
kids swimsuits. But what I think is actually like more
interesting is the craziness of the government because the government
stuff is like what you're now seeing is governments trying
(18:20):
to push companies pass where the companies even want to go.
And so you've seen this, like I don't know if
you've seen this in California now, like you can't buy
gas lawnmowers anymore. Have you seen this? I don't think
I actually have. Oh see, this is beautiful, like when
you live in like real America, they're busy in Florida.
We're free there, yeah, exactly right, right, So you know
I live in Arizona and that's close to California, so
(18:43):
like we catch the you know, we catch the blowback
that comes out of there. You know, they're busy doing
things like banning gas powered lawnmowers and leaf flowers in
the name of climate change. Right, and so now you
see these videos on the Internet of people walking through
like a home depot and the cheapest thing they can
buy as like a normal like riding lawnmower that used
(19:04):
to cost like, let's just say a thousand dollars is
now like a four thousand dollars thing that depending upon
where you live, you might have to charge it in
the middle of mowing your lawn, right, all in the
name of like ESG and you're just sitting there being
like you're literally making everybody's lives worse. It costs more
and does a worse job. Right. It's like the theme
that you see all the time, whether it's messing with
(19:27):
your dishwasher, messing with your refrigerator, what's the outcome? The
government officials are making it cost more do a worst job,
cost more, and do a worse job. And what I
think is the part that is like it won't mean
as much to your listeners, but it means a lot
to me. Is twenty years ago when the government officials
would do this junk companies and people would fight it.
(19:49):
Where I see the DEI and the ESG stuff really
doing this like dirty, dangerous thing is it's making companies
roll over and agree to remove products and agree to
do stuff in the name of the climate or anti
racism or any of these other silly things. And so
(20:10):
that leaves like a group like mine to actually yell
about how this makes people's lives worse. You used to
be able to rely on somebody at a company to say, well,
I still want to be able to sell something to
a person, but now they've been so scared by the
Left that they just agree. I mean, another one that
I'll say is just bonkers and will make everybody's life
terrible is California has now passed this rule that says,
(20:32):
if you want to operate trucks in California, you have
to make your entire fleet zero mission trucks. What is
a zero mission like freight truck It means that you're
supposed to have, like a truck, like an eighteen wheeler
that hauls stuff all across America, be battery powered. Right.
I don't know if you. I mean, I grew up
in the middle of America. These trucks are limited by
(20:53):
how much they weigh, and the battery is weigh a ton,
which now means that the truck's going to carry like
half as much and have to charge it all the time.
Fifornia is busy trying to make it so that you
can only have those trucks if you drive anywhere in California.
Your truck's in Nebraska, and I will also have to
be zero mission long haul trucks. And the trucking companies
agreed to it. They like wrote this special agreement. You're
(21:15):
lacking that they wrote this special agreement with the Biden
administration saying, even if your rule is struck down in court,
we agree to implement it anyway in the name of
like climate justice. Right. And so what you've got is
like everyone, like the stuff at your store comes on
these trucks, Like now it's going to get more expensive,
it's going to take longer to get there, it's more
expensive and does a less good job, and the companies
(21:35):
were like, sounds good. Right. So that's the stuff that
just like blows my mind is when these officials look
like they're just trying to make your life worse. You know,
I don't know. Did you see did you see all
the articles they're like right at the tail end of
the Biden administration about how good life could be with
that air conditioning? Did you see this? Yes, which I
(21:56):
fundamentally disagree. I love it, of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I'm you know, I'm the type of person who like
lives in Florida and my permit's freezing so I can
sleep with a comforter, Like yeah, great, great, Right, I'm bad.
I'm one of the worst offenders we love.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
In America, I know so. But when you're in the media,
you know this. When you see the first article that
says how great it is to live with that air conditioning,
you're like, that's weird. When you see the second one,
you're like, wait a second. When you see the third, fourth, fifth,
and they talk about how like the fight for climate
change includes getting rid of things like air conditioners, all
of a sudden, you have this moment where you're like, oh,
(22:33):
my God, the reason you officials are raising the price
of air conditioners or banning They banned the HFCs that
go into a lot of these air conditioners, and I
don't know, you probably haven't experienced this. Nowadays, a lot
of air conditioning companies won't repair your air conditioner. That
just make you buy a whole new system because they
can't get the replacement chemicals. And so when something leaks,
you now have to buy like a new thirty thousand
(22:54):
dollars air conditioning system, depending upon where you live. And
all of a sudden, you have this moment you're like,
oh my god, that's not like a negative side effect
from these officials perspective. You kind of want air conditioning
to be unreachable? Why do they want us to live
like that? Though?
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Because you know, I remember, like even I can't remember
the exact headlines, but they were also basically like you know,
breadlines are great, you.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Know what I mean. It's like yeah, yeah, no exactly, but.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Like why do they want us to What's what's behind that?
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Like why do they want us to live like this
is okay? Well now we explain the ya, the why
I'm home? They so you may you may have heard
this phrase net zero. I mean, I'm sure you've heard that, right,
people in zero? Okay, net zero means net zero by
twenty thirty or twenty fifty, depending on who you're talking to. Okay,
it actually means that you have to hit at zero
(23:43):
as defined by the UN like EIA, like energy group, Right,
they have charts in order to hit at zero that
means net zero new carbon emissions. They literally will say, okay, well,
in order to hit at zero, that means you're allowed
to have x percent of your emissions come from this,
and this and this. It literally means that you have
(24:04):
to get rid of all of the natural gas powered
fired power plants in America. All the gas stations have
to go away, Your ships in your harbors, and the cranes,
they all have to become electric. The semitrucks electric in
order to hit at zero, like, they have math that
they have to solve for. And so when you buy
this idea that the world will end unless we go
(24:28):
net zero by twenty thirty, once you accept that you
have to get people to give up air conditioning, You
have to get people to give up the gas powered cars.
You have to get people to make all of these
changes and probably get rid of things like dishwashers, right,
get rid of things like a like a refrigerator that
is too big, right from the last perspective, because otherwise
(24:52):
your math doesn't math. As one of my friends says, like,
you just can't get there, and so what do they know?
We're never going to get there though. See, this is
where this is where you and I can have that
discussion of maybe some chunk of them are just burnie
people who think that like government needs to control all
of this stuff, and so if you can, like you know,
there's that crowd, and that is in my mind, right, Okay,
(25:14):
so you and I kind of share that mind, but
there's like a whole nother crowd that like they've been
told they grow up in California, they've been told in
school that the climate change. Like I had somebody at
my house the other day who said that they are
terrified of climate change. Number one issue climate change? Right,
did you come out and look? My immediate reaction was,
what are using number What are you doing about climate change?
(25:35):
And the number one thing they're doing about climate change
is composting, So like we clearly have an issue where
like the thing they're doing doesn't have anything to do
with the thing that like, the life's got some problems, okay,
But at the end of the day, there is a
cohort of people who like they've been told that the
world's ending, that they have to do X to make
the world not end, and so they're going to buy
damn it, do X, right. But I do think that
(25:57):
a lot of this does stem from like control. And
you know, if you tell people that they can't use
too much. I mean, look, we made a video called
twenty thirty and it's all about what it will be
like in California and net zero world. And you see
that the government like meters how much electricity you can use,
You have to use only so much hot water because
you give basically are allowed an allotment of like carbon
(26:19):
emissions on a given day. And so if your kid
takes a hot shower, you can't take a hot shower,
your lights turn off at the end of your day,
your electric car, you can't have a fan at the office.
So the company can hit their net zero targets, right,
like it just it is to your mind and my mind,
nothing gives the government more ability to control every aspect
of your life than telling you exactly how much electricity
(26:41):
and power you're allowed to use. You ask somebody who
comes from Venezuela and you tell them what the ESG
people are pushing, and their immediate reaction is that's how
they control your life, because that's what they did in Venezuela. Right.
There's another component of people that I think is just like, well,
this is how I'm going to sell climate change, and
you and I are like, you're not can actually do that?
And they're like, no, no, but we need to try. So
(27:03):
I don't know, it's a mix.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Yeah, I'm with you because remember even AOC's former chief
of staff, I can't remember his name, but he basically
said that.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
The Green New Deal was a how.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Do you control the entire economy type of thing, right, I.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Mean okay, So, like you know, it's like we're talking
just the two of us, nobody else is listening. You know.
I think that explains a lot of this, right, Like,
but I do think you have these people who aren't
thinking about the logical endpoint, and I just want to
give some credit that there are chunks of them out there.
I mean I have heard. Okay, so you asked about
the craziest thing in corporate America. I finally remember my
craziest thing in corporate America. I have heard from friends
(27:44):
that they were sitting in meetings at giant, mega death
corps that sell lots of stuff. Okay. So like, imagine
a big box store that like you or I have
been inside, okay, and somebody was legitimately advocating that to
meet their net zero target, they should stop selling beef
products in the grocery at their store. And somebody else
is like, people like buying hamburger at our store, We're
(28:08):
just going to remove it because then it's good for
the climate, because you know. The little reveal is that
the left thinks that all the cows should go away
because they can't make their math math with the cows,
just to be clear. But there's literally sitting there and
a person who works for a company is advocating removing
all of the beef products from their entire store all
(28:29):
across America in the name of climate justice basically, And
this person is like slack John looking at them, being like,
why on earth would we stop selling something to customers
that they like and that we have right, you know,
But that was a discussion in corporate America in twenty
twenty four because of these there's people who think of
(28:50):
this ESG stuff, And that's not the AOC staffer. That's
somebody who's been infected by the bug that the AOC
staff are sent over the wall, right, and they're like
advocating for like a very anti consumer move at a
very consumer facing company. And it was like not laughed
out of the room. I mean, it was eventually laughed
out of the room, but it took a while.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
How much do you think this past election was just
Americans being like, I want to return to normalcy, you know,
because the past four years have been totally abnormal, as
you talked about, oh you don't need air conditioning, you know,
readlines are great, or you know, men can be women,
women can be men, you know what I mean, Like
(29:30):
just we've lived in a totally bizarre world for like
four years, and so how much of this past election
do you think was just like, get off my lawn,
I want to be normal again, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I think it's I think it describes everything. Look, the
vast majority of Americans don't think of themselves as political animals.
They just want they just want life. To be good
and normal, right, And if you buy what they were
saying before, you know, if you buy the narratives about
the last election, they are two elections as ago. People
(30:01):
were voting for Joe Biden because they thought he was
like a return to like a bygone era and normalcy.
And what they got to your point was bands on
gas stoves and like making your dishwasher worse, and you know,
boys and girls' locker rooms and the I think a
logical conclusion is whatever I voted for, it's not this.
(30:23):
I just want, like life to be normal. I want
to be able to go to the store and buy
Hamburger and drive my car that is powered by gasoline
and then go and actually have and like cook it
at home without the government telling me what I can
and can't use. Right. I think that really sums up
a lot of people's views, and I think it's a
(30:44):
good thing. And I think that the pressure that you're
seeing under the Trump administration against DEI and a lot
of these things at the federal level is going to
be so comforting to people because it'll manifest itself in
just like like life will just look normal at stores again,
which would be really nice.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
We've got a quick commercial break more with Oah Skinner
on the other side, we've seen them kind of come
out the gate already and with a lot of these
DEI executive orders and really sending the message that you know,
this nonsense is over. We're going back to a meritocracy.
We're going back to normalcy and common sense. You know,
(31:25):
what sort of long lasting changes do you think the
Trump administration can make and are they Are they going
about it the right way right now? And what else
would you like to see from them to make those
longer lasting changes.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I mean, they have the ability to make huge changes
to the extent that it will be the first time
with the like host Students for Fair Admissions versus Harvard,
which is a huge Supreme Court case that we haven't
talked about, is really important. Now. The entire Department of
Justice and the entire White House has US Supreme Court
(31:59):
case case law saying that, like, you cannot discriminate in
America based on race, even if you're Harvard, and even
if you're trying to do it in a like altruistic
way in your own words, right, No, you're not allowed
to discriminate based on race, full stop. America gets to
go back to being like a colorblind society. Now with
that in their hand, they finally have the ability. It'll
(32:21):
be the first Republican administration with the will and the
law on their side to basically create pressure on corporate America.
And the number one thing they can do is just
follow through on the eos and investigate companies. You know,
you asked question earlier that I didn't answer, which is
when one company gets a boycott, what message does that
(32:42):
send to the other market participants? They all immediately change
their behavior. So if one or two companies in an
industry get taken out into the school yard and just
like you know, metaphorically, you know, get smacked around by
the law of anti discrimination law in America using the
Apartment of Justice and the Department Civil Rights and made
an example of for the crazy stuff that they've been doing.
(33:06):
The rest of them are going to stop it. They're
going to just shut it down, right. Their lawyers going
to walk around and be like, we're done, We're not
doing any of that anymore. And the more of that
that happens, the more corporate America gets locked into the
middle not being liberal, not being conservative, which Frankly, that's
a good place for it to be because it's supposed
to sell things to both types of people in America.
(33:26):
And so the you know, what I just want to
see is this the cadence just keeps going right because
it's been a focus at the beginning, and now just
get it implemented. And the more pressure it more, the
more it sets corporate America free. And I think if
there's four years of pressure, I don't think you're ever
going to see corporate America writ large go crazy to
(33:47):
the left anymore because we will have trained them that
there's pressure on the right and there's pressure on the left.
And when there's two types of pressure, you just chart
a course through the middle. Well, from your lips to
God's ears. So let's the press. Yeah, I mean I'm
looking forward to it, you know, And I just I
just want people to like be able to buy things
from companies that aren't trying to tell them how to
(34:08):
live their lives. That's a good thing if we can
get there, And.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
That's kind of what you guys are doing at the
Alliance for Consumers.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Yeah, we fight really hard to just look, there's there's
a long time where companies stopped fighting back against crazy
stuff and they started being the implementers. And at the
end of the day, consumers just want, you know, they
want simple things. They want to be able to go
to the store without getting mugged. They want there to
be things on the store shelves when they get there
that haven't been robbed. And they would like to not
(34:35):
be socially lectured while they're at the store. And they
would like the government to let them buy this kind
of grill or that, this kind of sink or that
without it being entirely dictated by AOC's chief of staff.
And if you can just let them do that, they'll
vote with their feet and they'll buy the things they want,
and they'll live the lives they want. If you live
in a coastal enclave of California, you'll buy a tiny
(34:56):
electric car and the super expensive dishwasher, and you know,
maybe you'll go without air conditioning. And if you live
in Plano, Texas, you'll buy a suburban for your four kids,
and you'll buy a normal house with normal cars and
normal dishwashers. Because that's the life you're choosing to live.
And that's fine. I'm fine with a crazy person in
coastal California live in a crazy life. They're allowed to
(35:17):
be weird. But I think most people who live in
Eden Prairie, Minnesota or Plano, Texas should also be allowed
to like buy a car and have three kids. I
just think that's like a normal thing to do. Yeah,
like I don't want to be weird. Yes, most Americans,
just like most Americans are busy with their kids and
their lives, and they're not thinking about how they could
(35:37):
squeeze an extra two percent efficiency out of their dishwasher
and exchange for an extra three thousand dollars. That's a
Nancy Pelosi problem. That's not a family in Plano, Texas problem.
And along the way, the government got confused and they
started making it. You know, we call it mandated progressive
lifestyle choices. They're just trying to like mandate the Nancy
Pelosi Marine California crazy lifestyle to the rest of the
(36:01):
country rather than just letting those people be them and
the rest of the country be normal America.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Waite Skinner was great to meet you recently and great
to have you on the podcast. I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
This has been fun.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
That was Waged Skinner Appreciate him for taking the time
to come on the show. Appreciate you guys at home
for listening every Tuesday and Thursday, but you can listen
throughout the week until next time.
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