Several days ago I reported on billionaire Christy Walton, the richest woman in America ($18 billion), calling for protests against President Donald Trump all across America Saturday June 14th. Christy Walton is the heiress of the Walmart Corporation and former daughter-in-law of Sam Walton.
Walton took out full page newspaper ads to promote “No Kings” day on June 14th in The New York Times and other major newspapers around the country. Many Americans view this as a national disgrace since it is also America’s Flag Day and the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army which will be celebrated with a first time ever parade in Washington, D.C. that same day. They immediately began to call for a nation-wide boycott of Walmart.
In that report this week I discussed the day I met Sam Walton, founding father of Walmart:
______________________________________________________
I met Sam Walton, Christy Walton’s father-in-law and the founder of Walmart, when he opened his store in Plano, Illinois where I served as an elected alderman. We met at store #1003 February 3, 1987. I was one of the few there to recognize him after having read about him in magazines and newspapers as America’s newest billionaire.
Unlike his daughter-in-law Christy, Sam was a conservative “America First” nationalist. He was a Ronald Reagan Republican.
I knew Sam drove a 1979 Ford F150 with over 100,000 miles on it at the same time I drove a 1976 Chevy C10 pickup with over 100,000 miles on it so we had that in common as a good conversation opener.
I can still remember our conversation of that day.
“Hey there Mr. Sam Walton… I am Plano alderman Mark Schwendau. Did you drive up here in your pickup truck to visit us after this long drawn out process?” (Plano had to compete with two neighboring towns to win his newest store.)
He smiled broadly in a dress white shirt with blue jeans. I was the first to know who he was and knew about his stubborn refusal to buy a newer vehicle. I pointed to my Chevy across the parking lot and said, “That’s my baby over there much the same as yours.”
I do not remember all we talked about but I do remember three things about that conversation:
After I shook his hand and introduced myself and asked about his truck, he pointed to about a half dozen gentlemen across the parking lot and said, “No, my truck is home. The suits over there made me fly up here into Chicago.” (In retrospect I am guessing at least one of those was Christy’s husband, John who would have been 41 then.)
I asked him if it was true he was going to start selling stripped down Ford compact cars for families to use as second “commuter cars”. He told me he had been working on the idea but it appeared the actual Ford dealers were going to block him.
I asked him if it was true he was an advocate of always providing American made goods over goods made cheaper in China and elsewhere. He told me, “As long as I am alive, that will be company policy.”
Sam Walton was the first and only billionaire I ever met in my life. He became a billionaire in 1985, we met in 1987, and he passed away in 1992 at 74.
People asked me later what it was like to meet and talk to him and I said, “A really nice guy and just as plain as day, unpretentious.”
__________________________________________________________________
“PANIC: Walmart Breaks Over FEAR of Boycott, Goes Full MAGA: Totally CONDEMNS Illegal Alien LA Riots” – Benny Johnson
Many Americans became so outraged at Christy Walton’s full page newspaper ad promoting participation in the “No Kings Nationwide Day of Defiance” they began to organize a nation-wide boycott of Walmart.
But Dan Bartlett, Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Walmart, distanced the company the black sheep Walton family heiress the day after her ploy in this statement:
“We condemn violence, including when it’s directed towards law enforcement, and the damaging of property. As a company with associates and customers in the Los Angeles region, we remain focused on their safety and that of impacted associates.
The advertisements from Christy Walton are in no way connected to or endorsed by Walmart. She does not serve on the board or play any role in decision making at Walmart.”
CONCLUSION:
Christy Walton is a Trump hater who is reported to live in Mexico more than her American home in in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Her other home is reported to be in Baja California Sur, Mexico, where she owns Rancho Cacachilas, a tourism venture with glamping (glamorous camping) and outdoor activities.
Sam Walton would not approve of Christy Walton going against President Donald Trump!
I guess if you want to hurt Walton, you need to boycott her own business venture Rancho Cacachilas down in Mexico. Walmart did the right thing in immediately distancing themselves from Christy Walmart, unlike Anheuser Busch with their Bud Light debacle of several years back.
Like so many other Americans, I have had both family and friends work for Walmart. I hope people do not boycott Walmart. It might slightly hurt Christy Walton as a minority stockholder but it will hurt many others far more and that is not right.
Final Walmart Factoids:
- Chirsty Walton only holds about 2% interest in the company while the other 4 Walton children hold the remaining almost 50% of the company.
- Walmart consistently ranks as the largest company in the United States by revenue topping the Fortune 500 list for the 13th straight year.
- In the 2025 rankings, Walmart’s revenue was $681 billion, narrowly edging out Amazon at $638 billion according to Forbes.
- Walmart is the largest importer of Chinese made goods.
- Walmart employs approximately 2.1 million associates worldwide; with about 1.6 million in the U.S. Walmart has stores in 23 other countries.
- The percentage of part-time associates (less than 34 hours per week) at Walmart is 51% which is significantly higher than the national retail average which is 29%.
- Walmart has actively encourages part-time employees to apply for government welfare to supplement their income. While it is not known the percentage of Walmart employees taking government benefits, the Federal government has confirmed that both Walmart and McDonald’s employees are the top two groups of employees applying and receiving benefits due to their part-time employment with a low minimum wage.
- Walmart employees start out at minimum wage which ranges from a low of $7.50 to a high of $16.50 depending on their state of employment.
The difference between Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light verses Christy Walton and Walmart is night and day and I attribute that to a foreign held company (Belgium) to an American held company. Anheuser Busch was slow to respond, Walmart got right on this.
Please do not boycott Walmart.
© 2025 by Mark S. Schwendau
