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First Mass Layoff at Retail Giant Target in a Decade Under Trump's Flailing Economy
The incoming CEO announced 1,800 job cuts after 11 difficult quarters, a boycott over its DEI policy, and various complaints from consumers enduring broader economic pain.
Oct 23, 2025
As Americans are feeling the pain of President Donald Trump's economic policies, including the US leader's global tariff war, Minneapolis-based Target told employees Thursday that the retail giant is pursuing its first major job cuts in a decade.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Michael Fiddelke, Target's incoming CEO, said in a memo to staff that the company will lay off around 1,000 of its approximately 22,000 corporate employees and cut 800 open positions, mainly in the United States.
"The truth is, the complexity we've created over time has been holding us back," wrote Fiddelke, who is set to take over for CEO Brian Cornell in February. "Too many layers and overlapping work have slowed decisions, making it harder to bring ideas to life."
A Target spokesperson told CNBC that no roles in stores or the company's supply chain will be impacted. The last time the company announced mass cuts was March 2015, when it laid off 1,700 people and declined to fill 1,400 open jobs.
The Journal pointed out that "Target has reported 11 consecutive quarters of falling or weak comparable sales growth," and CNBC highlighted that "its shares have fallen by 65% since their all-time high in late 2021."
As CNBC also detailed:
Compared to retail competitors, Target draws less of its overall sales from groceries and other necessities, which can make its business more vulnerable to the ups and downs of the economy and consumer sentiment. About half of Target's sales come from discretionary items, compared to only 40% at Walmart, according to estimates from GlobalData Retail.
As a result of that and other company-specific challenges, Target's sales trends and stock performance have diverged sharply from competitors. Shares of Walmart are up about 123% in the past five years, compared to Target's decline of 41% during the same time period.
Target is among several that responded to Trump's return to office and executive order on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives by ditching its DEI policies. The decision caused some shoppers to boycott Target. While experts have debated the impact of the protest, it has certainly drawn attention to the company's financial state.
"When Target reported $23.85 billion in first-quarter sales, it missed analyst expectations by nearly $500 million. Foot traffic has declined for 11 straight weeks, with Placer.ai data showing consistent year-over-year drops since the boycott began," Investopedia reported last month. "Comparable sales in the second quarter fell 1.9%, with both transaction frequency and spending per visit declining. Operating income dropped by a fifth (19.4%) to $1.3 billion in the second quarter, while earnings per share fell about 20% to $2.05."
No woke, no growth: "Target cuts 1,800 corporate jobs in its first major layoffs in a decade. Target’s shares have fallen by about 65% since their all-time high in late 2021." www.cnbc.com/2025/10/23/t...
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— Social Media Lab (@socialmedialab.ca) October 23, 2025 at 4:59 PM
While acknowledging the DEI boycott, Bloomberg on Thursday also noted other issues, including that "many customers have pointed to long wait lines, empty shelves, and less distinctive items."
"Getting back on track won't be easy," Bloomberg added. "Shoppers remain selective, with consumer sentiment remaining subdued on concerns around inflation and the job market."
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Universities Didn't Fail, They Succeeded—That's Why They're Under Attack
Universities need to recognize that they are being targeted because of what they represent, not because of what they've failed to do, and resist accordingly.
Oct 14, 2025
I grew up watching my mother teach histories she was forbidden to teach, in a language that was illegal to speak. I know what authoritarianism looks like. And I'm watching American universities respond to this moment with the same dangerous pattern I witnessed then: accepting the narrative of their accusers, capitulating to illegal demands, destroying themselves from within.
At a time when blue cities become military zones, when citizens are arrested and abused on camera, when journalists are forced to transform from truth tellers to White House publicists, when the president accepts planes as gifts from foreign governments and then offers them military bases on US soil, it is not a moment for universities to ask, "What did we do wrong?" This is a moment to recognize: We are living through an authoritarian takeover, and universities are being targeted because of what they represent, not because of what they've failed to do.
The Trap of the "Universities Failed" Narrative
Across the country, university leaders are grappling with attacks on their institutions by asking: "How did we get here?" But without proper historical analysis, these questions lead directly into a trap set deliberately by those who seek to dismantle higher education as we know it.
The narrative is seductive: Universities became too focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). They pushed "woke ideology." They marginalized conservative voices. They failed to serve their students properly. And now, this narrative suggests, they're reaping what they've sown.
When universities face these attacks, they have a choice: Resist in solidarity with the broader democratic struggle, or accept the framing of their accusers and try to appease them.
This is all a lie. More precisely, it's what political theorist Isaac Kamola calls a decade-long psychological operation, a well-funded, well-organized campaign of disinformation designed to make Americans believe that what's happening in universities is not what's actually happening.
The reality? American higher education has more women enrolled than ever before. More people of color than ever before. An educated populace is a civically engaged populace, a populace capable of critical thinking and democratic participation. Universities haven't failed. Universities have been succeeding. And that success threatens the wealth and power of those orchestrating these attacks.
Understanding the Authoritarian Playbook
We’ve seen this script before. Universities are always the first targets of authoritarian regimes. Look at Hungary, where Viktor Orbán seized control of higher education through a national system, banned gender studies programs, and forced the Open University to leave the country. Look at Turkey. After 2016, more than 6,000 academics were expelled in Turkey, hundreds prosecuted, and entire universities were closed. Many dismissed scholars were banned from public sector employment and from seeking academic work abroad due to travel bans, creating widespread precarity and self-censorship among remaining faculty. The pattern is unmistakable and deliberate.
When universities face these attacks, they have a choice: Resist in solidarity with the broader democratic struggle, or accept the framing of their accusers and try to appease them. History shows us that appeasement doesn't work. It only accelerates the destruction.
Look at Brown and Columbia. In both cases, Brown and Columbia accepted Trump administration demands largely to avoid funding cuts, yet both remain under sustained attack from the administration. Rather than fighting to preserve institutional independence and democratic principles in higher education they have accelerated the authoritarian takeover by capitulating.
We are watching universities and their leaders across America choose the second path. They're eliminating DEI programs, not because they believe these programs are wrong, but because they're afraid of losing funding. They're censoring faculty, not because academic freedom suddenly matters less, but because trustees are buckling under financial threats. They're accepting the premise that they somehow deserve what's happening to them.
They are playing into the tiny hands of authoritarians.
What's Really at Stake: Race, Rights, and Democracy
If we take a historical view, we can see more clearly what's actually driving these attacks: race. The legislative assault on curriculum, the attacks on critical race theory, the dismantling of DEI programs, all of this escalated in inverse proportion to the access that Black and brown people were gaining to higher education.
The bookeyman of DEI is a strategic tool for turning civil rights laws on their heads, for weaponizing the very protections meant to ensure equity. When White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller tells law enforcement they're "unleashed," when apartments on Chicago's South Side are raided and destroyed in the middle of the night and families, including citizens, are separated and detained for hours, when the National Guard is deployed to terrorize Democratic cities with large populations of Black and brown people, we're watching the same white supremacist project that universities are being punished for challenging.
Powerful interests have recognized how threatening an educated, diverse, critically thinking populace is to their accumulation of wealth and power.
Chris Rufo has been explicit about his counterrevolutionary agenda. He accuses universities of ideological capture and promotes a fiction: that radical leftists completed a "long march through the institutions" from the 1960s to today, turning universities into engines of woke ideology. His strategy has been devastatingly effective, tying federal funding to demands that colleges eliminate "race-based" programs and DEI initiatives, end political activism on campus, and enforce what he falsely calls "ideological neutrality." The bitter irony, of course, is that this neutrality means alignment with conservative values. Authoritarian regimes always claim neutrality while enforcing ideology.
The actual transformative change that generations of civil rights leaders have fought to achieve in higher education has been painfully, frustratingly slow. As Dr. King reminded us, the arc of the moral universe is long. Diversity, equity, and inclusion work had just begun when the backlash hit. As Isaac Kamola reminds us, we haven't gone too far, we've barely started. And that's precisely why the backlash is so fierce. Progress, however incremental, is intolerable to those who benefit from the status quo.
The Rapid Response Trap
Rapid response to individual attacks, while sometimes necessary, keeps universities perpetually defensive and reactive. Each response accepts the terms of the debate as set by those seeking to destroy higher education. Today, it's a demand to eliminate a DEI office. Tomorrow it's a threat to revoke accreditation. Next week, it's federal agents on campus or trustees forcing out presidents who won't comply. The exhausting onslaught of breaking news pushes institutions into pure survival mode, where they can only see the immediate threat in front of them. Meanwhile, the bigger picture, the systematic dismantling of democratic institutions, disappears from view.
This is how authoritarianism works. It overwhelms. It exhausts. It forces you to fight a hundred small battles so you cannot see the war.
And when universities respond by looking inward, by searching for their own failures, by implementing "reforms" that mirror the demands of their attackers—cutting DEI programs, restricting faculty speech, purging curricula of "controversial" content—they believe they're defending themselves. They're not. They're participating in their own destruction. Worse, they're legitimizing the authoritarian narrative: that universities deserved what's happening to them, that the attacks are a reasonable response to institutional failure rather than a calculated assault on democratic education itself.
This is precisely what authoritarians count on: that institutions will police themselves, that fear will accomplish what force alone cannot.
What Universities Must Do Instead
First, universities must stop accepting the false premise that they've failed. Higher education remains one of the most important engines of democratic participation, social mobility, and civic engagement in American society. The Truman Commission understood this in 1947: Higher education's core mission includes preparing citizens who can respond to social needs with intelligence and creativity.
That mission hasn't changed. What's changed is that powerful interests have recognized how threatening an educated, diverse, critically thinking populace is to their accumulation of wealth and power.
The question isn't "What did we do wrong?" The question is: "Will we defend democracy, or will we aid its destruction?"
Second, universities must understand themselves not as isolated institutions defending their own interests, but as part of a broader democratic movement under siege. The attacks on higher education are interconnected with attacks on blue cities, on journalism, on voting rights, on the rule of law itself. Universities cannot win this fight alone, and they cannot win it by trying to appease authoritarians.
Third, universities must reclaim the narrative. Higher education is not a commodity that consumers buy and sell. Universities are not corporations. They are communities, students, faculty, staff, administrators, and the broader public, engaged in the vital work of knowledge production, teaching, and the preparation of democratic citizens. That means the university belongs to all of us, and all of us have a stake in its defense.
Finally, universities, that is all those who create the university community, must act with courage. We’ve seen examples of this courage—boards (like that of MIT’s) standing behind presidents who refuse to capitulate, faculty senates (like that of the University of Texas at Austin) adopting new academic freedom principles, and institutions using the rule of law to protect their faculty and students. Courage, in this moment, is the super multiplier. It gives others permission to resist.
The Choice Before Us
Universities stand at a crossroads. They can continue to react defensively to each attack, to implement “reforms” demanded by those who seek their destruction, to accept the narrative that they've somehow failed and deserve what's happening. Or they can recognize this moment for what it is: an authoritarian assault on one of democracy's essential institutions.
I know from experience that once authoritarianism takes hold, it moves swiftly. The window for resistance narrows quickly. My mother made her choice, to keep teaching the truths she was forbidden to teach. Now universities must make theirs.
The question isn't "What did we do wrong?" The question is: "Will we defend democracy, or will we aid its destruction?"
The answer to that question will determine not only the future of higher education, but the future of American democracy itself.
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Trump Admin 'Illegally' Freezes $18 Billion in Infrastructure Funds for New York City
One New York state senator called the move "extortion, plain and simple."
Oct 01, 2025
A senior Trump administration official said Wednesday that $18 billion in infrastructure funding for New York City is being frozen, citing diversity, equity, and inclusion concerns—however, a White House insider attributed the move to the federal government shutdown, while critics noted that both Democratic congressional leaders represent the Empire State.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said on the social media site X that the $18 billion was "put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles."
However, a Trump administration official speaking on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that the federal government shutdown that started at midnight is to blame for the freeze, as Department of Transportation personnel tasked with reimbursing workers have been furloughed.
Some skeptical observers noted that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries both represent New York and are both Democrats—whom Republicans are blaming for the government shutdown. Polling shows that more Americans say Republicans or both parties are to blame for the shutdown than Democrats alone.
President Donald Trump also threatened this week to cut off all federal funding to New York City if democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani wins next month's mayoral election. This, after the president threatened a federal takeover of the nation's largest city.
The withheld money is allocated for projects including the Hudson River Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway—which was first proposed in 1920 and has been under construction since 1972.
"You might as well threaten us with taking away the Dodgers."
Reacting to Vought's announcement, US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said on social media: "Let’s open our eyes. This isn’t a functioning democracy any longer when—in the middle of a high stakes funding fight—the president illegally suspends federal projects in states run by Democrats as a way to punish the political opposition."
New York state Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D-26) posted, "Trump Republicans are so cruel and incompetent that they're now playing games with billions in funding for critical infrastructure projects, putting the literal foundations of our city at risk."
"This is extortion, plain and simple," he added.
The radical publishing collective Strangers in a Tangled Wildnerness encapsulated the sentiment of many New Yorkers in a Bluesky post directed at Trump, or perhaps Vought:
Motherfucker, you think you can coerce New York City by holding the SECOND AVENUE SUBWAY hostage?This project has been dragging on for a literal century. You might as well threaten us with taking away the Dodgers. Pathetic shit. apnews.com/live/donald-...
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— Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness (@tangledwilderness.bsky.social) October 1, 2025 at 7:53 AM
As for Vought's stated reason for halting the funds, Trump, Republican officials, and MAGA luminaries like the late podcaster Charlie Kirk have baselessly cast diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)—an effort to mitigate centuries of ongoing systemic and institutional racism—and "woke" hiring practices as a catchall archvillain responsible for a host of ills ranging from transportation accidents to natural disasters.
Ripping on Vought's DEI claim, history professor Aaron Astor quipped, "Is the Queens Midtown Tunnel woke now?"
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