The ultra-right wing Washington Examiner, owned by billionaire Phil Anschutz, has a distorted, misleading article about ESG. The lack of nuance is indicated with the illustration.

The rhetoric is even more unhinged. For example:

ESG and stakeholder capitalism are not forces of good. Rather, they are the camouflage for the forces that have led to the hard-left politicization of so much of corporate America and that threaten the strength of our economy and the fabric of our civil society.

While some proponents of ESG investing and activism pursue niche interests, the primary goals of these actors are to tie companies to two fundamental commitments. The first is, in the name of “equity,” to discriminate on the basis of race, sex, and orientation (against whites, men, and straight people) in hiring, promotion, salary, and otherwise. The second is, in the name of environmental stewardship and concern for the climate, to stop emitting carbon in their activities not as technological and financial considerations might allow, but according to schedules dictated by biased and corrupt U.N. and private organizations. Not incidentally, these are the same two “whole-of-government” goals of the Biden administration.These true believers are complemented by grifters: investment houses that offer ESG-labeled funds that differ little from normal index-tracking products, except that in the past few years they’ve been a little heavy in technology (despite high energy usage) and light in energy (despite the fact that Western corporations create the cleanest reliable energy in the world). Though essentially indistinguishable from tracking funds, ESG-labeled funds are an excuse for investment houses to charge far, far larger fees to gullible investors.The ESG agenda is enforced and maintained by the leading investment houses and the too-big-to-fail banks. Firms like BlackRock claim their commitment to ESG is “not about politics” and “not woke.” But just like the left-wing activists and the current administration, BlackRock defines ESG’s overriding goals only as equity-based discrimination and radical, politics-driven decarbonization. These investment houses then use the influence derived from the investments they manage — influence that by right and under law should run to BlackRock’s investors, not its executives — to force all publicly traded companies to move in the direction of their ruinous personal policy preferences.

Revolt of the fat cats | Washington Examiner