Robby Starbuck
- X: @robbystarbuck
- Status: Alive
- Role: Cuban-American filmmaker and conservative activist. Former music video director (Akon, The Smashing Pumpkins, Yellowcard). 2022 Republican congressional candidate for Tennessee's 5th district. Director of the 2024 documentary The War on Children.
Bonhoeffer Criteria Scores (1–10)
See the Bonhoeffer Criteria for full criterion definitions.
| # | Criterion | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Articulates the blocker | 5 |
| 2 | Speaks out publicly | 9 |
| 3 | Understands the situation | 6 |
| 4 | Will not shut up | 8 |
| 5 | Calls out US intel-service problems | — |
| 6 | Calls out foreign influence on US politicians | — |
| 7 | Calls out captured US politicians | 6 |
| 8 | Calls out intel-service-caused deaths of Americans | — |
| 9 | Ethics first | 7 |
| 10 | Cannot be bought | 7 |
| 11 | Executive experience | 6 |
| 12 | Willing to criticize Israel publicly | — |
| 13 | Worked in government | 1 |
| 14 | Active political voice on social media | 9 |
| 15 | Economic / macroeconomic literacy | — |
Notes
Born 1989 in Los Angeles; raised by his mother and Cuban grandparents who fled Castro's Cuba in the 1960s. Built a music-video and commercial directing career in LA before relocating his family to Tennessee in 2019. Ran for the Republican nomination in Tennessee's 5th congressional district in 2022; the Tennessee Republican Party removed him from the primary ballot — a decision upheld by the Tennessee Supreme Court — and he then ran unsuccessfully as a write-in. As of 2025 has reportedly considered a renewed congressional bid in Tennessee.
Since mid-2024 has run a sustained, high-visibility campaign on X against corporate DEI programs. Several major brands — Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley-Davidson, Brown-Forman, Lowe's, and Ford — publicly rolled back DEI initiatives after his campaigns highlighted them. Directed and narrated the 2024 documentary The War on Children. Persistence under sustained corporate and media pressure (criterion 4) and a large independent social-media platform (criterion 14) are the clearest qualifying traits. Public record on US intelligence-service abuses, foreign intelligence influence, and Israel-related criticism is thinner than the corporate-DEI track; those criteria are marked unclear rather than scored.