Meet the conspiracy theorist and anti-LGBTQ extremist pulling the strings at major American corporations
In recent months, major companies have publicly announced that they are abandoning their diversity efforts. In at least two cases, companies were pressured into taking action by right-wing extremist and conspiracy theorist Robby Starbuck. He has succeeded in influencing corporate behavior through his social media account despite embracing racist conspiracy theories, anti-LGBTQ bigotry, and other fringe views. Following his recent successes, Starbuck has promised that he is just getting started.
Starbuck, a filmmaker who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2022, initially targeted Tractor Supply, a publicly traded agricultural supply company. At the beginning of June, he announced to his 520,000 followers on X that “it’s time to expose Tractor Supply.” Starbuck’s post, with a video accompanying it, alleged that the company provides “LGBTQIA+ training for employees” and funds “pride/drag events.” Starbuck also attacked the company for displaying “Pride month decorations in the office,” creating a “DEI [diversity, equality, and inclusion] Council,” and engaging in “DEI hiring practices.”
Starbuck encouraged his followers to boycott Tractor Supply and to contact the company to complain.
In late June, Tractor Supply announced that all roles pertaining to DEI would be eliminated, that all corporate DEI goals would be retired, and that it would no longer sponsor any “nonbusiness activities” such as pride events. The company also stated that it would no longer be submitting data to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the most prominent LGBTQ rights organization in the United States, for its Corporate Equality Index.
Starbuck promotes the racist great replacement theory on X. “There’s no sugarcoating it,” Starbuck wrote. “Democrats want illegal immigrants to vote. It’s why they let them in.” The great replacement theory is the claim that Democrats are trying to “replace” white Americans with immigrants.
Starbuck also promoted wild claims about the purported dangers of the COVID-19 vaccine. Starbuck has also shown support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine non-profit, Children’s Health Defense, calling it “fantastic” and saying it does “great work.”
Starbuck has also promoted "chemtrails," a conspiracy theory that "governments or other parties are engaged in a secret program to add toxic chemicals to the atmosphere," which he claims are part of a government effort to control the weather. In April, Starbuck wrote that major flooding in Dubai was not caused by “climate change” but was instead caused by “the use of weather modification” and “[c]loud seeding where chemicals are sprayed in clouds to create rain.”
Starbuck also pushed the false claim that there is cannibalism occurring in Haiti, stating that “the country is now effectively run by a warlord named Barbecue who has a ‘cannibal gang.’”
Starbuck is now going after his next target. On July 23, Starbuck called for a boycott of Harley-Davidson on X, citing the company's hosting "LGBTQ+ events at the corporate office" and facilitating "LGBTQ+ & race based" affinity groups.
In an interview, Starbuck said “he and his researchers have identified 20 companies that could be ripe for a similar boycott.” Starbuck said that he “definitely proved a model” that involves targeting companies that appeal to a conservative clientele. In a post on X, Starbuck wrote, "DEI is poison and we won’t rest until the public knows how companies have strayed from American values".
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teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"