Taking on the DEI Behemoth

Robby Starbuck first came on my radar sometime in 2018 as I was flicking through Instagram, compiling a list of filmmakers and producers I could tell were not unrepentant liberals as I explored a move to Los Angeles.

By that point, Starbuck had already been exiled from Hollywood after he came out in support of Trump three years prior. His name registered in my mind as I wandered across the country to send emails for a producer, but it wasn't until his move to Middle Tennessee a few years later and his bid to represent the 5th Congressional District in 2021 that he came back on my radar.

Oddly enough, Robby had moved to Nashville (or the Nashville area) around the same time I had moved back to Nashville and found myself writing this here newsletter instead of pawing my way through a desperate career in film and entertainment. Our paths mirrored each other’s in a way, but as the Congressional race progressed and Starbuck fell on the wrong side of the "bona fide" Republican debacle that saw him, Morgan Ortagus, and Baxter Lee axed from the ballot, my nativist hackles kicked up a bit, and I decided that we needn't anymore Californians telling us Tennesseans how to govern.

Needless to say, in the intervening years between his ill-fated run for public office and his steady commitment to the area, I slowly warmed to him. And as Starbuck has, by all accounts, returned to his first love, video production, and introduced a political bent to it, the niche he’s carved out has been both effective and hard to ignore.

For the past couple of months, Starbuck has been on a crusade. Focusing his efforts on exposing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in companies popular with conservative customers, he's successfully cajoled Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley-Davidson, Brown-Forman, Lowe's, Ford Motor Company, Molson Coors, and Caterpillar Inc. into dropping their DEI programs. At this point, Robby’s efforts have been so effective that all it takes for a company to reverse course is for him to post one of his signature videos. By the time you read this, it's not unlikely that another company will have announced their change of face at the behest of Starbuck’s reporting.

I was curious about his strategy, how he expects corporate culture to change in the wake of his jihad, and whether these corporate about-faces were sincere. Laying down the battle ax I waved against him during his run for Congress, we caught up over the phone: me in my office, Robby at his farm, Great Danes howling in the background. What follows is a transcript of our conversation.

🗯️ Digital Free Speech & Censorship Liber-net, an organization that “combats the emerging trend of digital authoritarianism and works to reestablish free speech and civil liberties as the norm for our networked age,” named Tennessee as one of the top ten most active states for passing laws and filing lawsuits relating to digital speech censorship and consumer protection since 2019. “A large percentage of these bills relate to interventions into social media content regulation, limiting the use of generative-AI, and requiring social media and adult content websites to use age verification to prevent minors from accessing their content,” reads the report.

The report doesn’t distinguish between bills that could be considered pro- or anti-free speech and instead, seeks to gauge raw activity in order to give a sense of which states are prioritizing the issue of digital speech. But, it does offer this perspective on the goals of the two political parties:

Over the last few years, it has largely been Republicans leading the charge against digital censorship efforts from the federal government and “Big Tech”, but this trend is dissipating as national and international events unfold. While a handful of Democratic legislators have introduced or co-sponsored legislation that could be deemed as protecting free speech, most have instead prioritized censorious efforts to curb “misinformation,” disinformation” and “hate speech.”

Here are the most common laws states passed that fit the study’s criteria:

• Banning or limiting the use of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and/or ‘deepfakes’ in election communications, usually within 90 days of the election, unless a clear disclosure is used. Introduced in almost every state and the District of Columbia, and adopted in 14 states.
• Creating new criminal offenses for the creation, distribution, and/or consumption of AI-generated child pornography. Introduced in at least 11 states;  adopted in 6 states. Versions have passed both chambers in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
• Requiring parental consent and/or age verification for minors to use social media. Introduced in at least 29 states, 21 of which require the use of some form of age verification. Adopted in 11 states, several of which have been successfully challenged in court.

You can view the full report here.

🏟️Titans Stadium Watch In February, Tennessee Builders Alliance broke ground on the new Titans stadium. Over the first six months, about 400,000 cubic yards of soil were excavated. The excavation process ended in July, and the crew has moved on to other tasks: drilling 767 support piers, installing a Soil Nail Earth Retention System wall to support the stadium's loading dock, building a water cistern tank, pouring concrete deck, and laying foundation pits for vertical transportation. Turner Construction Company and AECOM Hunt have built 17 of the last 30 new stadiums across the country.

You can watch a live feed of the construction site here.

🧱 The Dirt On Mold & Mildew During Tuesday’s Metro council meeting, the body killed a bill on second reading that would make it a code violation if a house displays overgrowth of algae, moss, mold, mildew, lichen, or fungus on its exterior. Council members who stood up against the legislation expressed concerns that the regulation would potentially harm elderly homeowners in Nashville. Over the last few years, several reports about developers anonymously reporting code violations have led to backlash over the practice being abused as a mechanism to push elderly residents out of their homes.

DEVELOPMENT

• Developer plans eight-acre event venue (NBJ)
• Under-construction 12South development adds first-to-market retailers (Post)
• Giarratana skyscraper captures international award (Post)
• West End-area apartment tower sells for $72.5M (Post)

✹ THOUGHTS ON MEGALOPOLIS

It's been four decades since iconic American director Francis Ford Coppola first envisioned Megalopolis—a magnum opus that he felt would overshadow even his The Godfather and its sequel. But since its premiere at Cannes last spring, the press has set up the self-financed sci-fi epic as the year's most spectacular dud, a projection that came to fruition when the movie flailed at the box office last weekend.

Regardless of its financial performance and polarized critical reception, Coppola's latest is all about fostering dialogue. And that's exactly how the Pamphleteer approached it. Editor-in-chief Davis Hunt and culture writer Jerod Ra'Del Hollyfield spent the week discussing their often-conflicting thoughts on a film that, adore or despise it, doesn't lend itself well to a 300-word movie review. We've printed the highlights of the correspondence below.

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide and yearly festival guide.

TONIGHT

🎸 The Heavy Heavy @ The Blue Room, 7p, $32.36, Info

🎸 Two Door Cinema Club @ Marathon Music Works, 8p, $49.83, Info

🪕 The Wheelhouse Rousters @ Station Inn, 8p, $20, Info

🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info

🎸 Kelly’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info

🎸 Open Mic @ Fox & Locke, 6:30p, Free, Info
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📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.