I've Stopped Going to Tractor Supply

 

I was pleased when a brand new Tractor Supply store got built about a mile from my garden, which saved me a much longer trip to the garden center at the local Lowe's, and I spent a lot of money there on everything from a new manure fork to dog food. If I wanted to mingle with rural folks, Sunday just after noon was the time to visit, because lots of church-goers in their Sunday clothes made a stop there on their way home from church.

During the height of COVID, you never saw anyone in masks, including the cashiers, so I tended to stand out as maybe the only liberal in the store. I got a few side-eyes, but at my age the stinkeye doesn't much faze me.

The company had a good reputation nationally, especially for its diversity programs that encouraged voter registration and PRIDE festivals. Bloomberg praised it for promoting gender equality, while Newsweek called it one of the best U.S. companies for diversity.

But the current reign of MAGA hatefulness was bound to notice. So a conservative podcaster with a big following in Tennessee, where Tractor Supply is headquartered, posted a denunciation of the company because it supports queers. An employee had messaged the podcaster the inside poop that Tractor Supply was way too woke for his taste. “Start buying what you can from other places until Tractor Supply makes REAL changes,” the podcaster wrote on X on June 6. Other MAGA soldiers joined the boycott, and the company’s share price fell by 5 percent in the past month, according to the Financial Times.

So Tractor Supply caved to the bigots, issued a public letter recanting all its diversity efforts, and why on earth would I want to give any more money to a company with that little courage of conviction?