A separate economy is emerging for consumers who want to opt out of supporting corporations that hold radical left-wing views, with new businesses popping up in various fields that aim to either promote conservative values or stay out of politics altogether.
Some of the country’s largest corporations have taken left-wing stances on divisive issues in recent years, and some have been accused of discriminating against conservative and religious consumers. A growing cohort of entrepreneurs is offering an alternative to left-wing corporations and aiming to change the culture through the promotion of conservative values in their businesses.
New Founding, a conservative for-profit organization, is connecting conservative investors with ideologically aligned projects. They are publishing a curated guide of companies that align with its social values. New Founding co-founder Matthew Peterson had already been informally connecting investors with ideologically aligned businesses, but he created New Founding to do that on a larger scale, he told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Social conservatives oppose hook-up culture and the trend of delaying or forgoing marriage, yet as several new dating apps hit the market aimed at helping people pursue marriage, conservatives had no way of promoting them as a cultural counter movement or an opportunity for investors, Peterson told the DCNF. New Founding aims to change that by creating a network of like-minded investors and entrepreneurs who can promote products they believe are good for the culture.
“Why isn’t there a pro-family angle that businesses are selling with the same level of urgency that they’re selling climate change? That’s winning to me. Winning would mean we’d be talking about the family crisis,” Peterson said.
Concerns about left-leaning corporations go beyond their political statements: The environmental and social and governance movement allows dominant investment firms to impose climate and social justice-related goals on other businesses even when they’re harmful to the bottom line.
ESG has fueled a corporate war on the fossil fuel industry, for example. The ESG initiatives of three top finance companies prompted 19 state attorneys general to question them about how they’re actually able to fulfill their fiduciary duties to investors while pursuing social and environmental goals.
The financial firm Strive Asset Management is cutting against the trend in the financial services industry of prioritizing social and environmental goals over shareholder value at the expense of customers. They’re pledging not to mix business with politics and to instead prioritize value for shareholders.
The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas asked U.S. publicly traded oil producers what was restraining growth in production despite high gas prices.
A staggering *60%* cited “investor pressure” in their responses.
Strive was born to solve this problem. Starting next week.
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) August 5, 2022
Is conservatism on the rise in the United States?
Another company saw growing popularity among conservatives after GoFundMe, the dominant crowdfunding platform, removed causes from its website such as the Canadian truckers’ protest against COVID mandates and the legal defense fund for Kyle Rittenhouse. GiveSendGo, a Christian organization, has become a popular fundraising alternative for conservatives who no longer trust GoFundMe.
GoFundMe’s Terms of Service prohibit raising money for the legal defense of an alleged violent crime. In light of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, we want to clarify when and why we have removed certain fundraisers in the past: https://t.co/aTpFpgEE8s
— GoFundMe (@gofundme) November 19, 2021
The Daily Wire, a company founded as a conservative news outlet, has moved into movies, children’s content and razor sales. It was reportedly valued at about $150 million in April. The company is openly conservative and markets itself as an alternative to its left-leaning competitors.
“Stop giving your money to corporations that hate you. Give it to me instead,” reads the website for Jeremy’s Razors, a Daily Wire project. Jeremy’s Razors was born out of a dispute between the Daily Wire and Harry’s, a razor company that sponsored the outlet before publicly denouncing it for criticizing gender ideology.
Rather than being simply “anti-woke,” this emerging economy needs to put forth a positive vision focused on family and community, according to Peterson. “This movement has to be cultural, it can’t just be about business … It’s about daring people to think this way and showing them it can be done. It transcends a lot of the fake and performative aspects of partisan politics,” he told the DCNF.
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A version of this article appeared on the Daily Caller News Foundation website.
