After Terror Attack, Allstate CEO Chides Americans About Our ‘Addiction to Divisiveness’
Maybe you’re not in good hands with Allstate after all.
By Mark Tapson
The nation is still reeling from the evil vehicular jihad which claimed the lives of 15 Americans on the streets of New Orleans early New Year’s Day. Their fellow Americans are rightfully outraged and grieving. Well, most of them are; some people have a different perspective on that heinous murder spree.
The 91st annual Sugar Bowl, which had been scheduled to go forward that same day at New Orleans’ Caesars Superdome, was postponed until the following day. The Georgia Bulldogs and Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish subsequently faced off without incident amid heightened security.
But just before the game began, Tom Wilson, chairman and CEO of insurance giant Allstate which was the Sugar Bowl sponsor, addressed the terror attack in a video statement. “Wednesday, tragedy struck the New Orleans community. Our prayers went to victims and their families,” Wilson told viewers:
We also need to be stronger together by overcoming an addiction to divisiveness and negativity. Join Allstate working in local communities all across America to amplify the positive, increase trust and accept people’s imperfections and differences. Together we win.
Let’s break this down. First of all, a nameless, amorphous “tragedy” did not strike the New Orleans community. A reportedly devout Muslim, flying the black flag of the Islamic State, is what struck the New Orleans community, as he slammed his vehicle into a crowd of revelers and killed 15 in addition to injuring dozens more. After which he exited his vehicle and opened fire on cops, who arrived at the scene and bravely neutralized him.
This was a terrorist attack of mass murder, not some vague “tragedy.” There was no reason for Tom Wilson to use the word tragedy because the event had already been confirmed to be an act of terrorism. The only reason to avoid using the word “terrorism” is if you are trying to shift the blame elsewhere, away from the actual perpetrators.
That brings us to the second point: to suggest that the terrorism in New Orleans somehow stemmed from a national “addiction to divisiveness and negativity” is one of the most offensive takes possible. We are beset by division and negativity in this country, but not because we have some psychological condition that Allstate, “working in local communities,” can help us overcome. We have been brought to the point of a hot civil war by an insanely radical Democrat Party pushing an anti-American agenda. That division and negativity have been weaponized by an activist, Left-wing mainstream media against their political opponents, whom they relentlessly demonize as deplorables, white supremacists, Nazis, fascists, etc.
Americans are not addicted to division and negativity; we have had it thrust upon us by a political movement – progressivism – whose driving aim is the lust for power and one-party hegemony. It is a movement that amplifies the negative because it is anti-American to the core and seeks to destroy the United States as we know it so that a collectivist, social justice utopia can be erected on its ashes (hence Barack Obama’s promise/threat to “fundamentally transform” the country). It is progressivism that is addicted to division and negativity. Progressivism is the reason we are the Disunited States.
Third, the claim that 15 people died brutally in New Orleans last week because Americans don’t “accept people’s imperfections and differences” is, again, a stupid and offensive interpretation of events. A jihadist slaughtered those innocents not because Americans need to be more tolerant of each other’s “imperfections and differences” but because Islam is a supremacist religion at war with all unbelievers until that day when there is no place in the world that has not submitted to Allah. The terrorist himself, Shamsud Din Jabbar, had expressed concern that his planned attack would send the right message: that it is about a “war between the believers and disbelievers.”
Progressive Allstate CEO Tom Wilson wants to steer you away from these facts to keep the focus on his intolerant fellow Americans. Indeed, Wilson’s repellant statement seems rooted in his company’s commitment to woke Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion principles. The Blaze Media notes that Allstate’s website has an entire page crowing about the many ways in which DEI “is a core value at Allstate”:
Wilson is a signatory of the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion pledge – the aim of which is to “rally the business community to advance diversity & inclusion within the workplace by working collectively across organizations and sectors.”
“In its 2023 annual report, Allstate boasted about employing fewer white men on its management team” and board of directors, The Blaze continues:
The company has also secured a perfect score in recent years with the radical LGBT activist group Human Rights Campaign, in part by providing multiple LGBT training elements, including an “intersectionality training”; providing sex-change guidelines and at least one inclusion policy for cross-dressing employees; having either an LGBT employee resource group or non-straight diversity council; and engaging in LGBT activism.
One would think that Wilson, as a proud supporter of the LGBT agenda, would be outspoken about the decidedly LGBT-unfriendly stance of Islamic fundamentalists like Shamsud Din Jabbar and his ilk, but progressivism forbids criticism of its partners in their unholy alliance.
Predictably and justifiably, the social media backlash against Wilson’s presentation was fast and furious.
Outkick founder Clay Travis called the statement “Tone deaf on an epic scale.” Army vet and bestselling author Sean Parnell slammed it, saying, “We don’t need to do a damn thing. These murders were committed by an evil terrorist thug.” Activist Robby Starbuck wrote, “This is the definition of suicidal empathy.”
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk stated,
A jihadist killed and maimed dozens of innocent Americans in a hate-fueled rampage, and the CEO of Allstate thinks Americans watching the Sugar Bowl need a lecture from him on overcoming “an addiction to divisiveness and negativity?” Absolutely not!!
Allstate wisely – albeit too little, too late – deleted Wilson’s statement from their social media accounts, but the truth is out there.
Allstate is my insurance company. I’m looking into switching. Perhaps all its clients should, to show our solidarity with the victims of jihad and to reject the sort of civilizational subversion exemplified by Tom Wilson and his self-righteously “diverse” team of managers and directors.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior.
Image Credit: Allstate / Youtube