Currently, I’m in a spat with Walmart. No, my complaint isn’t about Walmart as an unabashed exploiter of the working poor, the complaint common among illiterate social justice warriors. Au contraire, I’m referring to Walmart’s gradual alignment with the cultural left. Surprise, surprise.
What drew back the curtain was the company’s new policy on guns and ammunition. An emotive reaction to a horrible incident like the one at the El Paso Walmart is understandable, but don’t mistake “understandable” with “reasonable”. For many reasons, much in Walmart’s new stance on guns is absurd. More about this later.
Walmart’s approach is encapsulated in this memo to employees shortly after the El Paso shooting. It can be found here: https://corporate.walmart.com/…/mcmillon-to-associates-our-….
A Wikipedia search of the memo’s author, John McMillon, President and CEO, uncovered more. Guns and religion are two of the most salient issues in the culture war. And McMillon weighed into both. In 2015, McMillon proclaimed that a “religious freedom” bill before Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson “threatens to undermine the spirit of inclusion present throughout the state of Arkansas and does not reflect the values we proudly uphold”. Cut through the gobbledygook and we see that Walmart has joined the LGBTQ crusade to punish religious dissenters for disagreeing with them. McMillon sounds like Pelosi. Religious freedom laws have become a necessity as government agencies and commissions under the sway of the powerful LGBTQ lobby have targeted private individuals for taking the Bible seriously. Talk to Jack Philips, or take a look at the Houston mayor’s attempt to subpoena pastors’ sermons, or governments’ efforts to force religious organizations to facilitate abortion.
But now we have the big cheese at Walmart declaring “inclusion” trumps (no pun intended) “religious freedom”.
A scan of the company’s website will find it littered with the eco-lobby’s hobby-horses. I suspect that the “suits” in charge at Walmart chafe at those viral pics of unsightly-dressed shoppers. They want to upscale the company’s image by showing that they too are like the swank Malibu types with fashionable views to go along with a fashionable look.
McMillon’s personal history, though, presents a conundrum. He’s a born-again Christian. He’s also a lifer Walmart employee. On the religious angle, he’s confused in trying to mesh his haute couture views with Jesus of Nazareth. As an employee, he’s been in management for at least 20 years, and much of that in corporate management. Somewhere along the line he has absorbed many of the values of a university’s Sociology faculty. It’s a familiar development in the backgrounds of many corporate execs.
Wealthy people in today’s world seem to be attracted to wokeness like a moth to light.
RogerG