A new report revealed which companies are at the highest risk of going "woke," prioritizing political ideology over profit margins.
The president of the nonprofit that released those findings, the 1792 Exchange, joined "Fox & Friends Weekend" to discuss how consumers can counter the trend and why they hold the power in re-writing the precedent surrounding "woke capitalism" in corporate America.
"The customer has incredible power," Paul Fitzpatrick told Rachel Campos-Duffy on Sunday. "The problem is we need to change our behavior. We recommend that folks go under our database. 1792 Exchange.com. Find the companies that they patronize, print off the report, walk into the office, the local branch, and if it's a high-risk company, asked politely to calmly speak with the manager and say, ‘Why are you doing this? Are you going to cancel me?’ And if you're a business or a nonprofit, ask to have the terms of your agreement changed."
"If it's a low risk company, go into that office, thank them, encourage your friends to shop there, and we believe that market forces will work," he continued. "If we change behavior, our behavior, the companies will change their behavior."
The 1792 Exchange revealed that 50% of companies are at low risk of going "woke," while 30% were medium risk and 12% were at high risk.
Some of those high-risk companies include YouTube, GoDaddy, Amazon, Etsy, Salesforce, Bank of America, GoFundMe, and J.P. Morgan.
Fitzpatrick noted that one of the tools used to facilitate the transition to "woke" corporate culture is the implementation of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies.
"ESG is a set of principles that are ill-defined, which is really the answer," Fitzpatrick said. "Environmental, social and governance are principles that activists can use to fill and weaponize corporations. They can cancel customers, as we've heard, and you talked about, can deny service."
"They can choke off funding based on these principles, and they're rating companies based on whatever the political position of the day is," he continued.
Fitzpatrick also explained why banks going "woke" is of particular concern, given the impact they can have on Americans' retirement funding.
"These banks want to use your money to advance their values so much that they are fighting state legislation that's moving through many states right now that would simply restrict public employee pension funds, so that can only be invested for the beneficiaries, not for ESG reasons, and they and they are the ones fighting in the states and that it is unconscionable and shocking," he said.
