This is off topic for my regular news pieces on Brunswick. We have the recall bill to cover, and the upcoming races of Iler and Williams. I am a reader supported channel. I do NOT take money from anyone but you. If you like this substack, please consider supporting. If you do not want to spend a yearly, try the monthly, and cancel after you get to the level you feel comfortable with.
As many frands know, I am a restorationist on the side. I have spent a lot of time not only restoring my old American 1980 Ford Truck, but also Old Harley Davidsons. I am a moderator of a Harley discussion board and I was tapped for that role because of my cataloging the restoration of my 1988 Springer.
Why do I, and many others, engage in this activity? For one, we want to preserve beauty. Older cars and motorcycles are more beautiful than the new crap we buy. Think about it: when you see an old car or motorcycle you stop and take a look. I bet you do not do that on many new cars. Why do you stop and look though? Because you KNOW we have lost something. You KNOW we used to make beautiful vehicles that were more compatible to our humanity than this new shit. You know, that the older cars and scooters are a testament of something Great—when America was Great. Finally, preserving our Great Past is typically a male and manly labor. There is a reason real men engage in the preservation of greatness. I explain all that here in the video below, when I started The American Savage Garage:
Watch video to the end for the restoration I did.
This manly preservation of owned space, and greatness, is a foreign concept to Robby Starbuck. Old cars; old scooters = Freedom. When I tried to point that out to him, he was like a lost puppy in a field. He had no clue what I was talking about. That was a red flag. He cares not for manly pursuits of owned space. And owned space is a prime appeal of Harley riders.
This is a difficult post to write, not because of the person per se, but because generally speaking I agree with much of his Demonic DEI opposition. But Robby Starbuck is taking advantage of his newly minted career as “influencer” to mislead people. I am unsure who he is in the payroll of, but it is clear this failed candidate for office represents serious problems that need addressed because he has not the capacity to understand manly pursuits of greatness; he wants to merely burn it all down and fool his readers into thinking he is some oracle of all that is wrong in corporate America—damn the honest preserver of what was once American Greatness.
It all started in July when Robby Starbuck “discovered” a very old year+ story about Harley Davidson going woke. Before I get into this, it would be remiss if I did not note, that we appreciated him repopularizing this issue. We have wanted corporate changes at HD for YEARS.
However, in the process of his “expose” on Harley, he got a lot wrong, and was not nuanced in his critique. He refused to take friendly advice. In other words, some of the issues with HD Corp are not related to DEI Woke policies, and have been plaguing the company for decades.
When I tried to gently point this out to him, he rejected it. After all, we are political allies yes? Surely he would want a friendly correction. Yes? NOPE!
He would rather claim that HE was responsible for “discovering” the woke policies at Harley, and then he went one step further by claiming, without evidence, HE was responsible for their stock tanking.
Here is an example how he did the same with Deere:
I looked into Deere a YEAR ago because I am going to buy a tractor. I ruled them out on my own because of their DEI policies. Starbuck did not have to tell me, I already knew. But when one looks at Deere’s stock over time, you see consistent decline even BEFORE he exposed them for their DEI madness. Here is my response:
Here is the blown up of the stock YTD:
See the trend? The trend does not comport to Starbuck’s claim that HE is responsible for their decline. The question any smart person would ask is, why is the trend of Deere down? Easy answer if one would but look:
Starbuck has no clue what people in the community in the market for a tractor are thinking. He does not because he does not care. He is not a prepper, or homesteader. It is unlikely he has ever been on a farm or ranch. Many are foregoing Deere because of excellent competition from TYM, LS, Kubota, and many others. Massey is coming back now. Deere has consistently less lift capacity and their tractors are more expensive than the competition. TYM for example, is well made and cheaper, and has a greater lift capacity than the more expensive Deere. Starbuck did not care because he has a narrative he wants to push that aggrandizes himself and his worth. I like to be…I don’t know…truthful.1
More: The decline in Deere is also across ALL brands. Please note this:
This has also been the case in 2024, as February marked a key data release from the Agriculture Department. According to this data, net farm income in the US is projected to fall to $156 billion in 2023 to mark a 16% drop from 2022’s record high of $185.5 billion. This trend will continue in 2024, to mark an additional, and stronger, 25.5% annual drop to $116 billion.
When I pointed this out to Starbuck, he couldn’t care less. Why? Because it took away from his claim that he was responsible for exposing DEI at Deere causing their stock losses. In FACT, stocks are down everywhere, because AG is down everywhere. Starbuck blocked me because I questioned his efforts being at the center of what he was claiming. Facts matter, or should, and MAGA is done no service when someone lies about their efforts and their importance. It is narcissistic to do so.
But let’s talk about his alleged Harley expose. A lot of it on the surface, is fine. Yes, Harley went woke, but we knew that a year ago from Vet Biker and my friend, Sose the Ghost:
Starbuck then claimed he was going to expose the board members of Harley…he to this day has not kept his promise. Even so, it was pretty pedestrian. Vet Biker actually did a deep dive on the Harley board and did it better. Thankfully in the video above, Sose preserved it.
I tried to tell Starbuck about the video above to HELP him, but no. He knows more than anyone, and rejected it. I suppose “influencers” like him only want all the accolades, and do not want to cooperate with real people on the ground who, in many cases, know more than he does.
It appears Starbuck does not want to build a broad coalition to change woke companies. What he wants to do is do it alone. This is destined for failure. It is a losing mentality and one MAGA needs no part of, especially when he makes false statements. It leads to bad actions and policies. Case in point, is Starbuck supporting people burning their bikes. Something most in the community are against, but nevermind, Starbuck has an agenda:
Here Robby take credit for the recent drop of HOG stock. He actually condemns his own effect. Stock at Harley has been up and down over the last year, and it was lower before his DEI discovery:
Look at the 5 year trend:
In August 2023 Harley took a hit. That was because of Budweiser, but you will note, there was a quick bounceback. Much of the decline in Harley is their awful corporate aim to make Harley not a brand for all people, but rich boomer minded assholes who go “bad” on the weekend. THAT is their real problem. Different Spokes has noted this for years. Go search his channel on it. He has covered this excellently.
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Starbuck then misled his readers again (I’ve lost count) by posting this:
It was true at one point, the CEO Zeits wanted to make electric bikes. Then he tried it. It was a miserable failure. So miserable, Harley discontinued it, and Zeits planned on making a version of this bike at a SEPARATE company. As it stands now, Harley has no plans to make another electric bike. Starbuck could have known this by a simple search. He did not. This is yet another example how he plays fast and loose with the facts for his own ends.
I will add this: In a post, Starbuck stated Elon Musk should make an electric bike. I pointed out that the HD riders already rejected that. Then he made the post above and in the end, and covered up his prior support of an HD electric model. This is an example of just how ill informed Starbuck is about HD riders and their community, and how he changes his tune when caught:
Starbuck then tied Harley moving some of its models no longer sold in the US to Thailand, and blamed it on….woke policies:
Simply stated, this is a lie. Starbuck lied. He provided no evidence for this self important claim. Different Spokes explains some of this (but not the Thailand move) in his recent post on corporations and how they work:
Spokes did a quite effective takedown of Starbuck. It was also reasonable and rationale view of what is happening on the ground. He is right about one thing and I do think this applies to Starbuck—he is creating outrage for increasing his followers. He has no strat to actually do something. He wants clicks.
There is a vast wide corpoate sickness going on in the country. Many of these corporate giants are controlling HD, and many other businesses. The way to rid ourselves of these nefarious entities, is not merely by going online Starbuck style, and exposing them. It will take more, alot more, and money to defeat them. Starbuck in this sense has already lost. If anyone thinks that Starbuck is going to move the needle one F’ing inch, you are fooling yourself. It would be better to go after the companies smartly, and that means, unfortunately, taking them over. So someone needs to buy Harley. Period. That is the solution. The shareholders are NOT going to sue their board because the shareholders are entities like Blackrock.
In the meantime, what can we do? PRESERVE the glory of our better days—buy old Harley’s and old cars. Fix them up. Preserve what was great in order for the young to see, know, and feel it. Discover your inner manhood you may have forgotten.
At any rate, the corporate realities were sent to Starbuck. He ignored all of it. Facts be damned. I noted this to him:
Starbuck also misled his readers that HD stores were closing because of DEI:
I pointed out to him that this has been an issue for DECADES. Please note this here, and here. You can easily find more examples yourself. It is not hard to find.
Anyone who knows anything about the history of HD Corp., even before Zeits and woke policies, is that the family stores have been closing because HD Corp decided a long time ago to promote premiere shops. The family run HD store is becoming extinct. HD has for decades been pissing off their core customers and HD Corp has been walking away from those who made Harley great. This was, again, a policy long before any woke HD came onto the scene.
But Starbuck couldn’t care less, not when there’s a story that needs to be pushed.
Starbuck did not want help from the community on this OLD story, even Sose noted why this is OLD news to us—the core HD enthusiast is WAY AHEAD of Starbuck on all of this:
Starbuck wants to tarnish the entire history of Harley Davidson. He celebrates people burning their bikes. But NO ONE in the community (for decades) really believes that should be done. They believe in hurting HD Corp, but not destroying that which represents what is good about America. The HD customer is hurt by all this, because of what HD represents in the past. They want to save Harley not burn it all down because then….we have nothing.
Sose explained that in the comments below, and why. We honor the Great American past; we believe those days can retVrn. Sose expressed exactly how we thought about this a year ago:
Frankly, we need HONEST people in our movement if we are going to have any effect on demonic policies. Starbuck in this manner is not our friend. He wants to aggrandize his own worth and his own self. It would be nice to know who is funding him at this point. But even if someone does not tip me off to that, I would make great caution to be wary of people (especially political hacks) you do not know who seem to be playing a game you agree with. DEI is evil. Starbuck is right to be against it. But he wants to be against it and lie about his efforts and powar regarding it. In that aspect, he misleads readers about the effects of DEI and gives the unwary supporter a false hope we are beating it.
We are not.
As Different Spokes noted, Harley is not Bud. Bud has competitors. Harley does not really. Indian/Polaris is FAR behind Harley. Starbuck’s strat might work for companies like Bud, where people can go and buy a similar different branded product. Not so for Harley. They are the only game in town. Starbuck is either too stupid, or too narcissistic to understand these dynamics. Further, Starbuck is not going after Ford or GM for their woke policies that have been around longer. Why? He only goes after companies who have a MAGA clientele. This might be somewhat workable in the short run, but our problems are deeper, and Starbuck does not want to deal with that reality.
This reality is why, after a year or more, the people who KNEW this problem have made so few strides in taking the board of HD down. Starbuck does not know, because he does not want to talk to the average Harley enthusiast, but the company tried to buy off people like Vet Biker a year ago to shut him up. Nevertheless, Starbuck is so short-sighted that he does not understand there’s a much greater influence on NOT changing DEI practices in a market where one brand reigns supreme.
So what have we done? People like me have preserved the old, and kept alive the superior time in America when we built things and did so well, while leaving far left politics at the doorstep of slave democrats. We preserve what once was, and we are actively pursuing, what will be again. In the meantime, we are going to vote Trump, in hopes that some changes in federal laws and policies will give us a foot in the door, to take Harley back, for the good of Liberty, and ALL Americans.
Starbuck does not think beyond his 500,000 Twat followers and how he can eek out more clicks. Thus, Starbuck is doing damage to the serious people who want serious change.
Starbuck has claimed he turned Deere around and they backed off on DEI. That is a lie. Read on: https://www.deere.com/en/stories/featured/leading-with-a-dei-mindset/
