MAGA Celebrates Walmart’s DEI Move: ‘The Tide Has Turned’

Several MAGA figures have rejoiced after Walmart announced it will roll back its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs.

Walmart, the largest private employer in the United States with 1.6 million workers, has become the latest and largest company to say it will backtrack on its diversity initiatives under pressure from the right.

The changes include withdrawing from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index, which measures workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees, scrapping a racial equality center and not prioritizing suppliers when it comes to race or gender, The Associated Press reported Monday.

DEI programs aim to address disparities among historically marginalized groups in business, schools and government agencies and have long been a target of Republican attacks over claims that it is racially divisive. Several people joining President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet, including those linked to the Heritage Foundation’s conservative manifesto, Project 2025, have vowed to target DEI initiatives.

Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who will join Trump’s cabinet in the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, celebrated the Walmart announcement, suggesting it was a major turning point in the fight against the so-called woke agenda.

“The tide has turned,” Musk wrote on the X, formerly Twitter, platform he owns.

Newsweek has reached out to Walmart for comment via email.

Robby Starbuck, a former Tennessee GOP congressional candidate who has waged a pressure campaign against companies promoting DEI initiatives, took credit for Walmart’s announcement and said he had contacted the company about its policies.

“This is the biggest victory yet for our movement to end vigilantism in corporate America,” Starbuck wrote on X on Monday. “Our campaigns are now so effective that we’re getting the biggest companies in the world to change their policies without me even putting up a story detailing their woke policies.

“Businesses can clearly see that America wants normalcy back. The era of wakefulness is dying right before our eyes. The landscape of corporate America is rapidly shifting to sanity and neutrality. We are now the trend, not the anomaly.”

Starbuck posted several other DEI initiatives that Walmart said it is now ending. This includes no longer using the gender-neutral phrase “Latinx” to describe people of Hispanic descent, and reviewing its funding for Pride events to ensure it avoids funding inappropriate sexualized content that may be inappropriate for children.

Walmart also will not renew its Center for Racial Equity, a five-year, $100 million philanthropic commitment established in 2020 to address “the root causes of achievement gaps experienced by black and African-Americans in education, health, finance and criminal justice systems.” .”

Conservative commentator Rogan O’Handley, more commonly known as DC Draino, wrote to his 1.9 million followers: “Wow how powerful an X account can be.

“Robby just got Walmart to drop their DEI policies. Think about it – a nearly $1 trillion company with nearly 2 million employees dropped a company policy because of a single incoming tweet. The pen really is mightier than the sword.”

Tom Fitton, a Trump ally and president of Judicial Watch, added: “Great news. Robby Starbuck is helping to convince Walmart to further back away from vigilante racial discrimination and other DEI extremism like promoting transgender extremism targeting children!

“It will also stop trying to appease the cultural left’s rabid enforcers at the Human Rights Campaign.”

The Libs of TikTok account run by Chaya Raichik, wrote while sharing Starbucks post: “DEI MUST DIE!!”

Walmart has now joined other major companies such as Toyota, Harley-Davidson, John Deere and Lowe’s in announcing they are pulling out of DEI initiatives.

A Walmart spokesman told The Associated Press that several of the policies being dropped, including using the term DEI in job titles and communications, have been discussed for some time and are not related to conservative outrage or Starbucks activism.

“We’ve been on a journey and know we’re not perfect, but every decision comes from a place where we want to foster a sense of belonging, to open doors to opportunity for all our employees, customers and suppliers, and to be a Walmart for everyone,” the company said in a statement.

After she was nominated to lead the Democratic Party’s 2024 ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is of black and Asian heritage, was labeled the “DEI vice president” or “DEI candidate” by some on the right. This was met with bipartisan criticism.

Many black Americans have said that calling someone a “DEI rent” is a racial slur.