How Harley-Davidson traded American grit for woke ideology

I once read an amazing analysis about the birth of modern America. It explained how veterans returned from World War II and how programs like the GI Bill opened new avenues and opportunities that hadn’t existed before.

As American soldiers returned home, many of them were battle-hardened warriors who had faced the worst of humanity. They fought for freedom and brought back skills that aren’t taught in any elementary school or university.

We learned to see American brands as icons for what we stood for, but we are now being conditioned to be 'unburdened.'

Veterans’ benefits made the American dream possible for over 13 million people. Some went to college, while others bought homes. Many started businesses, empowered by new skills in engineering, auto mechanics, and air mechanics — all fueled by a grit and determination reminiscent of the American pioneers.

A few years later, some of those men helped build the U.S. interstate highway system, which connected this new generation of American pioneers like never before. “Go West, young man” was replaced with “get your hands dirty,” “work for what you believe in,” “improve your community,” and “fix what is broken.”

Americans once took pride in maintaining their heritage. We valued American brands like John Deere, Tractor Supply, Ford, Chevrolet, Indian, and Harley-Davidson, and we actively protected their legacy. We worked on these products in the fields and in our home garages, building businesses to ensure they continued serving the American public. These weren’t just commodities. They were our livelihood. They plowed our fields, fed our families, and took our kids to school. They embodied the American spirit, symbolizing everything we were willing to fight and die for.

To the children of some of those returning veterans, how many of you learned about real American muscle while leaning over the front end of a 1965 Shelby GT, a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro, or a 1970 Chevy Chevelle, or learned about the internal combustion engine while Pop tore apart a 1941 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead?

How many of you assisted your dad in keeping the plowing season alive by repairing the family’s 1949 Model B John Deere tractor? How many trips to Tractor Supply did it take?

You no doubt bloodied a bunch of fingers. You sat in the garage, on the hood, or in the field and dumped about 10 gallons of sweat, but you did it proudly. You listened as Dad or Granddad patiently said, “There’s where the crankshaft is. That’s the water pump. That’s the alternator. That’s the fuel pump, and that’s the line that goes up to the carburetor.” He might have even let you pull on the throttle linkage so you could hear that baby sing.

There was no agenda here besides pure American greatness. American brands built our country. We relied and depended on them. We built businesses of our own from them, and we passed that legacy on to our children. It was their birthright, and it created modern America.

Harley’s woke surrender

This is a big part of the reason why today’s corporate “diversity, equity, and inclusion” craze is such a huge slap in the face. Woke politics have replaced the purity of the American brands that we grew up with. We depended on these products. We built income from them, and we supported our communities with their logos displayed proudly on barns and in garages. Those symbols are now being replaced by corporate boards who get their marching orders from people like Larry Fink at BlackRock.

Robby Starbuck has recently exposed multiple companies for this behavior: John Deere, Tractor Supply, and especially Harley-Davidson.

Can you think of a bigger slap in the face than the woke capitulation of Harley-Davidson? Harley is one of the brands that helped win World War II. The Harley-Davidson WLA carried American GIs to war against the Nazis. The WLA was brought back to the United States, and a new era of motorcycles was born after the veterans began chopping them up for civilians to use. The “chopper” was born.

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Veterans returning from war from the 1940s through today have ridden Harleys as both a therapeutic mechanism to deal with what they saw on the battlefield and as an homage to experience the openness of American freedom. And that legacy has been taught and handed down to Harley-Davidson riders from father to son enthusiastically since 1903.

What has Harley-Davidson done with that legacy? Here are just a few of the things that Starbuck exposed:

• Harley-Davidson openly supports the Equality Act, which would allow men into girls' bathrooms, sports, and locker rooms.
• The company funded an all-ages Pride event that featured a "rage room" next to drag queen story time.
• 1,800 employees were required to attend a virtual training course on how to become “LGBTQ+ allies.”
• The woke CEO, Jochen Zeitz, signed the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion Pledge.
• The company made February and March "months of inclusion" because, apparently, Pride Month isn’t enough.
• The company hosted multiple woke United Way trainings.
• Harley-Davidson sent some employees to a “white male only” woke diversity training program.
• To top it off, the company is openly working to have fewer white suppliers, dealers, and employees.

And the list goes on.

What globalists want ... and fear

The purpose of modern cultural Marxism and progressivism is to destroy what was once great by attacking everything that made it great back in the beginning. You have to be “unburdened by what has been,” as Kamala Harris says, in order to open the door to “the fundamental transformation of America," to quote Barack Obama.

Twenty-first-century fascists are doing this, one beloved brand at a time, and we’re seeing it happen in real time. Woodrow Wilson once said, "The use of a university is to make young gentlemen as unlike their fathers as possible.” We’ve been seeing that from academia for decades. By and large, universities are lost.

Teach your kids that getting their hands dirty is a good thing. Something fought, bled, and sweat for has meaningful value. It’s part of who we are as Americans.

But that wasn’t enough. Progressives then turned their sights on our children in grade school. But that wasn’t enough either. They’re now going after the heart of the American entrepreneurial spirit and the beloved brands that made us who we are today. We were brought up to love them. We learned to see them as icons for what we stood for, but we are now being conditioned to be “unburdened.”

Reconnect your children to the basics of what makes American products so great. “American made” is more than just a slogan. It represents the weary men and women working in factories in small towns across Middle America. It’s the dad teaching his kids to change their own tires and oil. It’s the multiple trips to the local parts store and the thrill of victory as the family tractor roars back to life.

Teach your kids that getting their hands dirty is a good thing. Something fought, bled, and sweat for has meaningful value. It’s part of who we are as Americans. It benefits the family. It supports the community. It spreads that beloved American brand all over the country — and the world.

That connection goes all the way to the top of the corporate boardroom. That connection is what the globalists fear the most. Your passion has the power to destroy every coercive motive they can ever dream up. It is the same passion that fueled the American pioneer. It carried our soldiers into war against the Nazis and then drove them to catapult this country into the modern era.

That passion is why they’ll ultimately lose.

Unburden your families from the unburdening. Teach them the history of what made this country great. If a corporation tries to pervert a beloved American brand, show your kids what made them beloved to begin with.

Explain how the Harley-Davidson engine noise was specifically designed to be iconic, how the crankshaft has only one pin, and how the arrangement of the cylinders makes the pistons fire unevenly. No other motorcycle sounds the same. Why? Because it’s a friggin’ Harley! It’s part of Harley's story, and that is why American companies are so beloved to us. Sure, they sell quality products, but we fall in love with their story.

Reconnect these great American brands with their incredible stories. Get some oil, grease, and brake dust on your hands, and take pride when your kids ultimately cover their faces in it while trying to help you. Passion drives change, and it is your passion that scares these tyrants the most.

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