How Home Depot Became a Political Flashpoint

In 2025, the retail giant Home Depot found itself at the center of a swirling storm of political controversy, one that has had measurable implications for its brand and reputation. This wasn’t due to a faulty product launch or a failed marketing campaign. Instead, according to Infegy Starscape’s social listening data, Home Depot has become a political flashpoint in consumer discourse, caught in the crosshairs of ongoing national debates around trade tariffs and immigration enforcement.

Using social listening tools like Infegy’s Narratives, we’re able to pinpoint key moments and themes driving the massive surge in conversation volume about the brand. Unfortunately for Home Depot, much of this attention is negative, and growing.

Surging Home Depot Related Conversation

One of the earliest and clearest indicators that something is happening with a brand is a sudden spike in online mentions. In Home Depot’s case, the post volume has nearly quadrupled, jumping from around 40,000 weekly posts to more than 160,000.

Figure 1: Surging Home Depot Post Volume (January 2025 through June 2025); Infegy Social Dataset.

This type of surge isn’t necessarily good or bad on its face, it simply signals that something significant is going on. Figure 2 reveals a significant concentration of negative post volume, accounting for 33% of the total collected, an unusually high share for a well-known and generally well-regarded U.S. brand.

Figure 2: Sentiment Pertaining to Home Depot (January 2025 through June 2025); Infegy Social Dataset.

Let’s now dig into Infegy’s Narratives to understand the context of what’s driving this negativity. We’ll show you that the attention is being driven by two major and largely negative narratives: the effects of international tariffs and a perceived association with controversial immigration enforcement activity.

Home Depot’s Tariff-Related Price Increase Conversation

To understand what’s fueling the surge in conversation, we used Infegy’s Narratives feature, a tool designed to distill millions of data points into key themes that are shaping public perception. One of the most dominant narratives around Home Depot involved tariffs.

Figure 3: Narratives Related to Home Depot Tariffs (January 2025 through June 2025); Infegy Social Dataset.

Tariffs have been a hot-button issue throughout 2025, impacting industries across the board. We’ve recently written about how these economic disruptions are reshaping consumer sentiment in the U.S. (see: Tracking the 2025 Tariff Crisis). For Home Depot, which sources Canadian lumber, Chinese-manufactured tools, and various other international goods, the impact has been direct and visible.

These tariff-related conversations alone accounted for about a quarter of the total post volume we observed, an impressive figure when considering the brand’s broad footprint.

Figure 4: Tariff-Related Post Volume (January 2025 through June 2025); Infegy Social Dataset.

When we examine the topics tied to this narrative, two themes emerge. First, political associations, namely with Donald Trump, underscore how tightly wound this issue is with national policy discourse. Second, and perhaps more revealing, is the surge in price-related concerns. Words like “pay,” “order,” and “raise prices” hint at growing consumer frustration and sensitivity to cost increases.

Figure 5: Tariff-Related Topics (January 2025 through June 2025); Infegy Social Dataset.

These insights are critical of both Home Depot and the broader retail landscape. Price sensitivity is a leading indicator of potential macroeconomic tension in a consumer-driven economy. When sentiment shifts this dramatically, it signals deeper unease with purchasing power and supply chain stability.

Home Depot’s (Inadvertent) Association With ICE

While tariffs ignited one wave of concern, a completely different issue has fueled another: immigration. Beginning in early 2025, the U.S.’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began increasing its presence at various public gathering spots, among them, Home Depot parking lots, long known as informal meeting points for day laborers.

Though the company itself has no formal relationship with ICE, the optics of raids and arrests occurring on its premises quickly snowballed into public outcry. One Los Angeles Home Depot location, in fact, became the starting point for what turned into the largest immigration protest of the year.

Figure 6: Narratives Related to ICE Raids Taking Place at Home Depot (January 2025 through June 2025); Infegy Social Dataset.

The public reaction to this narrative has been notably more negative than the tariff-related discussion. In fact, positivity in the ICE-related conversation clocks in at just 27.8%, about half that of the tariff discourse. This suggests a deeper emotional response, likely tied to the human impact of immigration policy enforcement.

We validated the scope of this conversation by analyzing post volume over time. As Figure 6 shows, immigration-related discourse surged dramatically in June 2025, making up a dominant share of total brand-related conversation during that time.

Figure 7: Post Volume About Home Depot ICE Raids (January 2025 through June 2025); Infegy Social Dataset.

Drilling into the associated topics, we found a heightened presence of emotionally charged and even violent language, terms like “throw rocks,” “raids,” and “burn American” stood out. While it’s important to avoid overgeneralizing from fringe language, the intensity of these terms signals the highly volatile nature of this narrative.

Figure 8: Top Topics About Home Depot ICE Raids (January 2025 through June 2025); Infegy Social Dataset.

What This Means for Home Depot, and Other Retailers

The story of Home Depot in 2025 is a cautionary tale about how external political forces, whether related to global trade or domestic policy, can create powerful ripple effects that reach all the way to brand sentiment.

With social media acting as both amplifier and accelerant, brands today are expected to navigate complex socio-political terrain with agility and sensitivity. What’s striking about Home Depot’s situation is how little of it was self-inflicted. The company didn’t initiate the tariff increases. It didn’t invite ICE into its parking lots. Yet it’s become a symbol, fairly or not, of two of the most polarizing issues of the year.

For consumer researchers, marketers, and strategists, this highlights the importance of real-time brand tracking and thematic analysis. Tools like Infegy Narratives provide context, helping companies spot potential crises before they hit the mainstream and understand the emotional undercurrents that drive consumer behavior.

In the case of Home Depot, the road to reputational recovery may depend on proactive messaging, clear distancing from politically charged narratives, and, perhaps most importantly, ongoing investment in understanding the shifting dynamics of public sentiment.

Key Takeaways

• Home Depot has become an unexpected political flashpoint, impacting brand perception.

• • Online conversation surged 4x, signaling heightened scrutiny.

• Tariff-related concerns are fueling negative consumer sentiment.

• • Price hikes linked to trade policies are driving backlash.

• Immigration-related incidents have intensified reputational risk.

• • ICE activity at store locations sparked public protests.