Tractor Supply caves to right-wing troll

Anti-trans music video director whips up a fake moral panic

Last week, I shared the following video by Zach Freeman, a “Concerned Parent in North Texas.” Zach was responding to conservative media targeting Tractor Supply, the large retailer with 2,000 stores, mostly in the South (though there are stores in 49 states). He descended into one of the stores to investigate the “woke agenda.”

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A post shared by @conspiritualitypod

While Zach’s humorous foray inside the “woke” company’s store highlights the absurdity of the right’s culture war, Tractor Supply had a different take. A few days after this video was published, the retail giant released the following statement:

Let’s backtrack. A month ago, right-wing music video director Robby Starbuck started complaining about Tractor Supply’s DEI program. For context, Starbuck released an anti-trans “documentary,” “The War on Children,” earlier this year. After its release, he was accused of requesting and conducting interviews under false pretenses.

Nashville drag queen Veronika Electronika – who works with children’s reading programme Drag Queen Story Hour Tennessee – claims that she was tricked into taking part in the documentary, saying she had been asked to do an interview about how the lives and mental health of LGBTQ+ people were being affected by bans and restrictions on drag performances and gender-affirming care.

This isn’t the first time Starbuck has been called out. In 2023, actress Megan Fox threatened legal action when he shared a copyrighted photo of her accompanying accusations of “child abuse.” The charge was in response to a photo Fox posted of her supposedly “misgendered” children.

The image showed Fox’s eldest son Noah wearing a pink long-sleeved T-shirt and tie-dye shorts, while Bodhi and Journey were dressed in dark T-shirts and trousers.

Fox claimed that Starbuck was clout chasing, which, tracing the arc of his career, seems on point. He was also chasing clout when picking a fight with Tractor Supply. The disingenuous method was the same, but this time he won.

Tractor Supply began initiating environmental programs in 2017, when the company outfitted all its stores with LED lighting. Four years later it was voted one of the top 100 Best ESG Companies and joined the EPA’s Green Power Partnership. The company also pledged to be carbon neutral by 2040.

With a fake frenzy whipped up by a clout-chasing troll, all that work is gone.

This story breaks as Hurricane Beryl is sweeping across the Caribbean. It took the storm only 42 hours to evolve from a tropical depression to a major hurricane, making it one of seven such storms in recorded history. Here’s the thing: the earliest date for the others is September 1. Early July is extremely early for hurricane season, especially one of this size.

Last week there was devastating floods in Moab, Utah. This weekend, in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Switzerland and Italy are dealing with massive flooding as well, while wildfires rage in Greece and Turkey.

Tractor Supply reneging on environmental promises isn’t going to change our new climate reality. But with the Supreme Court tossing Chevron away, we should treat news of Tractor Supply self-policing its environmental impact as we do any corporation: with extreme skepticism.

Tractor Supply has already proven that its primary concern is profits. The environmental programs were initially launched due to consumer pressure. The difference is that reducing environmental impact is necessary. What Starbuck is doing—engaging in a moral panic that drives attention to himself—is not.

Regulations curb dangerous behavior. By overturning Chevron, the SCOTUS handed the Heritage Foundation (and it’s nefarious Project 2025 agenda) a massive victory. Conservatives and libertarians have been chipping away at regulations since the New Deal. This decision isn’t so much another chip, but a landslide. The notion that corporations are going to self-regulate is as laughable as the idea that trickle-down economics favors all classes.

And yet here we are once again: a right-wing troll who specializes in anti-trans moral panic whips up a frenzied conspiracy around a company that, for whatever reason, was trying to move in the right direction for the planet—and which implies, by default, all the people that inhabit it. Instead, he drives the attention to himself and his twisted pet cause, which is ultimately about attention capture. And he was able to capture enough attention from a right-wing media ecosystem to—what?—ensure that yet another company abandons the bare amount of stewardship possible?

For Starbuck to claim to be Christian when his focus is antithetical to humility and charity espoused by that religion. No, this is the power-seeking muscular Christianity that slays doves with swords just because it can. After they’re all slain, the sword bearer will scan the environment with smug assuredness until realizing that in the killing spree, there’s nothing left alive.