Could activist investors be influencing America’s biggest “Conservative” network?
By Iron Tiger
It seems like we are under attack from every angle. Every time we try to take a moment to breathe another corporation does something unbelievably stupid and offensive, or Biden goes off on a ridiculous tangent about the dangers of so-called “Extreme MAGA Republicans,” whipping the actual extremists of his base into deeper and deeper hatred for this country and half of its residents. Education is a mess, entertainment is a mess, the news industry is a mess. For the most part, we’ve just kept looking the other way. We never really push back. We took solace in knowing that we at least had Fox News, but with their recent sacking of popular show host, Tucker Carlson, it’s not even clear we have Fox.
This has been an issue for a lot longer a time than most realize. When Glenn Beck left Fox News, I was worried that the Left would claim it as a win. He was facing an organized advertiser boycott led by the Far-Left Extremist, Color of Change, who would whip people into reaching out to corporations like Geico and Sargento to convince them to pull their ads, which they did. Although Beck maintains that he is the one to terminate his relationship with Fox, it didn’t matter. The message was sent that this tactic of de-platforming works. And so they did it to Bill O’Reilly, and then to Tucker Carlson. But Tucker lasted longer than I thought he would, given that the perception of Fox as a company that caves in is deeply rooted in the Left Wing zeitgeist now. For a time, it seemed like Fox was done caving in, and then they did. But why?
To be completely honest, we don’t really know. There are a lot of rumors and speculation being bandied about. Tucker is likely under a Non-Disclosure Agreement, or NDA, that prevents him from speaking on the matter. But there is one aspect of the story that I, as a part-time Investor, found quite curious. Back in February, the Left-Wing Activist Investor Group, Blackrock, increased its position in their shares of Fox News1. Their recent purchase has increased their shares to 15.1%, a crazy high amount. It could be they have an interest in Fox’s dividends, which aren’t too shabby, or they could be vying for control of the boardroom. If these shares represent the A stock, and not just the B (or common stock) it wouldn’t be that hard to get at least one person elected to the board, or even if they only own B stock, this is a large enough share that dumping it all at once could do damage to the stock value. The mere threat of that can be enough to bend some boardrooms to their will. Either way, they are in a position to be making demands.
I should be clear; I am just speculating. I have no evidence to suggest Blackrock did any of this, but they do have a history of using their positions to push for the extremist ESG (Equity, Social, and Governance) nonsense, which reimagines capitalism through an environmentalist and redistribution of wealth lens . . . or in other words, just repackaged socialist tyranny . . . But even so, I have no evidence that Blackrock had anything to do with Tucker being sacked . . . but it is an awfully odd coincidence that only a couple of months after this large purchase, Tucker is out.
Boardrooms have become a battlefield in the culture war, and as with every other field in the culture war, we are just now starting to notice. How is it that Disney is now a far-left extremist propagandist? Wasn’t Walt an outspoken Republican? Wasn’t he an anti-communist? Wasn’t he a proud Christian? Short answer, yes. But the traditional Christian Conservative morals that once guided Disney have long been abandoned under the leadership of Bob Iger, Bob Chapek, and Bob Iger again. Their side of the aisle dominates the board, and they don’t care at all that the value of their stock has been halved under their leadership. For them, it’s all about the agenda. One Disney leader was even caught bragging about their, “not so secret gay agenda,”2. The agenda is so deep in Disney that even the most recent Ant-Man movie took a moment to praise socialism. The company is completely antithetical to what Walt Disney envisioned, and it became that way because, while we were looking the other way, the Left seized the boardroom.
We blinked and now Nike, Maybelline, Anheuser-Busch, Gillette, Hershey’s, and on and on, and have all become propaganda arms of the far Left. It is a disturbing merger of Corporations with the Party in Power. And yet . . . it can be undone. It just takes us being willing to put our money where our mouths are. Sadly, conservatives tend to be very risk averse, and a move like this can be very risky. But the other option is to win elections and then betray our morals by using the force of government to force these corporations to stop aligning with the Democratic Party. But I think Elon Musk showed us that isn’t necessary. While Twitter has a way to go before it becomes profitable again, it is a greatly improved platform from what it was. No doubt new leadership could turn these other corporations around. But that new leadership will require new investors who are willing to risk it all to stop the radical left from advancing their agenda in the boardrooms.
I do suspect that Blackrock’s influence over Fox at least had something to do with what happened to Tucker. The timing is just too coincidental, and given their past Left-Wing investment activism, would it be a surprise at all to learn they were involved? Even if I am wrong, the fact is that we are losing America’s boardrooms, and that is a situation that must be turned around. It is risky, to be sure. But if we don’t start our own activist investing, the strange situation at Fox News will continue to happen repeatedly, all over corporate America, and that does not bode well for the country.
- Blackrock Increases Position in Fox News Corporation, by Fintel Staff, www.Nasdq.com, 2-1-23, https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/blackrock-increases-position-in-fox-corporation-foxa
Disney exec cops to advancing ‘gay agenda’ by ‘adding queerness’ to shows
- By Alexandra Steigrad, www.myopathy.com, 3-30-22, https://nypost.com/2022/03/30/disney-producer-cops-to-adding-queerness-to-animated-shows/amp/
