The business world is becoming familiar with Robby Starbuck, the conservative activist who has made major waves by using the power of Twitter/X to pressure major companies, including Tractor Supply and John Deere, into abandoning their DEI commitments and partnerships with progressive organizations. But his latest target company might be the most instructive yet: Walmart.

Starbuck has tended to target companies with historically conservative customer bases as a means to pull corporate policy back to neutral. I work in the trenches of the fight against corporate politicization, and I can confirm his success isn’t ultimately due to just him, and it neither started nor will stop with him. Those of us who work to depoliticize America’s biggest companies know that the backlash against DEI and ESG is a manifestation of a much broader trend in corporate America.

Walmart is simply the latest (and biggest) domino. Across every industry, there is a strong push against corporate policies that advance “progressive” agendas. The fierce criticism comes from different groups: Individual shareholders tired of seeing corporate dollars spent on divisive DEI programs, institutional investors who view the progressives’ corporate control as failing to advance business interests, and fiduciaries in red states who rightly see ESG initiatives as hindering the growth of industries their constituents rely on for financial security. When Starbuck asserts that “no industry should feel safe,” it’s not an anti-business sentiment but a pro-business one: The ESG-skeptic movement is only growing, thereby forcing corporate leaders to relearn that a fiduciary duty to shareholders is a duty, not some statement of intent. And, as a duty, it cannot simply be discarded to humor radicalized employees, the human resources division, or institutional investors who have chosen to ignore their own obligations.

The next four years are a golden opportunity to expose and remedy the leftward drift of many large American companies. And when companies choose the right path, we ought to praise them. Let’s take Walmart as an example. Walmart’s retreat from the DEI industry is not, despite how progressive activists like National Urban League’s Marc Morial try to frame it, a kowtow to an “extremist” “smear campaign.” It’s a back-to-basics decision to cease putting corporate support and dollars behind divisive social issues.

Walmart has made the right choice here — whether it results from fearing a Robby Starbuck exposé or from a broader realization that the recent election shows a rejection of DEI policies. Regardless, the biggest employer in the world has chosen to preserve its duty to customers and shareholders instead of taking yet another step to advance biased corporate policies, partnerships with organizations that support puberty-blocking drugs for children, and divisive identity-based programming. Full credit is due.

Is it possible that many companies will make a similar choice out of a desire to come out of the next four years of right-leaning cultural ascendance more or less unscathed? Not only is it possible, it is likely. But whether the motive is truehearted or simply a PR gambit, it’s an opportunity for pro-shareholder voices to defend upholding fiduciary duties, maximizing human flourishing through business growth, and being unapologetic about business functions. The thing that has made Walmart an indomitable force for human flourishing, more than anything else, is not its ability to lecture employees about “internalized racial superiority” but its ability to be the largest provider of retail goods and services in America — and all the wealth and value creation that comes along with that. Walmart’s executives, seemingly, understand that fact — or, at least, they do now.

Is there room for a healthy dose of skepticism about the current wave of backlash against DEI and ESG? Of course. To engage in a little self-promotion, as America’s leading shareholder-first proxy consulting firm, that’s the work we do every day in corporate engagement. But the devil’s in the details. We should be vigilant about the tactics ESG activists use to circumvent these policy changes, and there’s no denying that the tide is slowly turning. The notion that a company can both pander to left-wing ideologues and maintain a “neutral” façade to evade scrutiny is, and should be, a fiction. The next four years may be a boon to conservatives seeking to depoliticize the workplace, but this is a fight that extends beyond any election cycle.

The past year’s outcry over corporate bias on issues of race and gender has prompted headline after headline. Now, it’s absolutely clear: There are political prices Americans will not pay with their consumer dollars. And our biggest corporations now have a decision to make: Either continue drifting (or marching) leftward at the direction of activists to whom business success is secondary to partisan goals, or ditch politics and cling tight to business purpose by trusting shareholders and customers who value a consistent brand. Many of this nation’s biggest companies are choosing wisely — let’s hope many more follow suit.