on March 19 donald trump jr. sent an email through the company that manages his father’s email list, Campaign Nucleus, announcing “a HUGE advancement in the culture war.” That culture war, Trump wrote, “is coming to corporate America.” He added that conservatives have a “new” tool to fight back against “awake” workplaces: the “free to work” job board RedBalloon. As an incentive to create an account on the website, Trump offered 20 autographed copies of his latest book, Causes.
“The big job boards like Indeed and ZipRecruiter are basically promoting a ‘woke’ workplace policy,” Trump said in a promotional video on the right-wing video streaming site Rumble. “They’re a big part of the problem.” Exactly what the problem is, or what the word “awake” is supposed to stand for, other than a conservative shibboleth, is unclear.
Next to the eldest son of the recently indicted former president in the RedBalloon ad is the company’s sadly named founder, Andrew Crapuchettes. RedBalloon’s origin story dates back to 2021, when Crapuchettes claims he was fired from his CEO role at his former company, EMSI, for being “too conservative and Christian.”
RedBalloon’s explicit “anti-woke” positioning fits into a broader conservative drive of recent years to create a “parallel economy” alongside progressive values. The idea has been promoted by junior Trump and far-right pundits such as Turning Points USA’s Charlie Kirk. And while a parallel right-wing ecosystem of media outlets has gained some traction, other anti-woke projects haven’t fared as well. Think of the bank financed by Peter Theil that faced self-cancellation, or the fact that the right-wing Twitter alternative Parler has only about 20 employees. As NBC News reported last month, conservative tech founders said at the most recent Conservative Political Action Conference “they believe some companies that were part of the ‘parallel economy’ movement got ahead of themselves in their ambitions.”
‘An unashamed conservative Christian’
The specific nature of Crapuchettes’ Christian faith is something that may give fans of the separation of church and state some food for thought. November 2021, The Guardian reported Crapuchettes as an elder of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho – a church led by a man who has “openly expressed an ambition to create a ‘theocracy’ in America”.
“When I ran the company, I believed everyone had to put their whole selves to work,” says Crapuchettes when asked about his beliefs. “And as an unapologetic conservative Christian, that means when we have our annual Christmas dinner, I’m going to pray before the meal.”
As for Crapuchettes’ role as an elder of a church promoting Christian theocracy, he says it was “never brought up” as a conflict by his former board of directors.
“Was it an underlying problem? I have no idea,” says Crapuchettes.
Crapuchettes says the problems with his former employer started when he and EMSI’s board of directors butted heads over various social issues. “The Covid-BLM-George Floyd social shift happened,” says Crapuchettes. “We came to a conflict over a number of things and they ended up selling the company.”
