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The Republican/Big Business Divorce
Last week, I posted a Tweet from Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (a.k.a., Frank Luntz’s roommate) in which he excoriated big business. “If Corporate America thinks jumping on the bandwagon after Tuesday’s election and before the impending red wave will make conservatives forget the role they played in subjecting the U.S. to open borders and runaway inflation, they are sorely mistaken.” I received it with the same skepticism I treat a Democrat president who shows up to church only on election years when there’s press around, or Oprah when she used to go on diets.
On the other hand, this widely circulated opinion piece (It’s been in the Washington Post, The Guardian, Business Insider, and a lot of other outlets) posits that “Big Business Can’t Rely on Republicans Anymore.”
The conflict between big business and the GOP has spilled into the open. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s most powerful pro-business lobbying organization, has been a close and crucial Republican ally seemingly forever. So it came as a shock when the chamber backed 23 freshman House Democrats in the 2020 elections.
In its pre-populist era, Republicans might have tried to mend fences. Not this time. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s response was to declare, “I don’t want the U.S. Chamber’s endorsement because they have sold out.” Six months later, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a potential 2024 presidential candidate, called the chamber “a front service for woke corporations.”
Last month, House Republican leaders kicked the chamber off their strategy calls about the Democrats’ climate and social-spending package, dubbed the Build Back Better bill, despite their shared opposition to the legislation. This self-destructive tantrum on the part of GOP leaders came after the chamber criticized some House Republicans for not publicly supporting the bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed the House on Nov. 5. “I didn’t even know the chamber was around anymore,” Mr. McCarthy sneered.
Here’s the TL;DR version.
- The US Chamber of Commerce, which represents big corporations, began backing Democrats instead of Republicans (ostensibly) because Trump was pro-tariffs, anti-cheap illegal immigrant labor, and thought it would be pretty great to manufacture things in America instead of China. (Also, he said mean things that hurt people’s feelers.)
- Now, Republicans are telling the Chamber of Commerce to pound sand. The Republican base doesn’t trust big business, and Big Tech’s open embrace of Democrat politics hasn’t one them many friends among elected Republicans. (Their paid-off lackeys at the Bulwark, Dispatch, et cetera, are another matter.)
- The Chamber of Commerce is a weakened force in politics. It’s been abandoned by some of its biggest donors and has a lot less money to throw around influencing elections than, say, left-wing dark money PACs like the 1630 Fund. And the Democrats they gave their money to are still basically socialists who hate business.
The author makes clear his political leanings — repeating the slander about Trump and Charlottesville, and soft-pedaling the big business embrace of woke, far-left politics as “adopting the aesthetics of the left’s cultural agenda.” It’s not “aesthetic” when corporations are forcing racialist indoctrination on their employees, using former entertainment events as platforms for left-aligned political messaging, and giving billions of dollars to far-left organizations. These are not mere aesthetic choices, these actions reflect core values. Decades of unchecked left-wing indoctrination in business schools and Marxist activism has simply found its way into the boardroom. (And into the leadership of the CoC as well.)
I don’t know whether the Republican – Big Business split is for real or just a matter of optics. I suspect the latter. Whether the issue has been illegal immigration, exporting working-class prosperity to China, or signing off on bloated “infrastructure” bills that offer billions in kickbacks to connected cronies, the GOP, especially under the Bush Family, has always been a reliable lapdog for corporate interests. Any long-time observer would be justified in suspecting that this recent public separation is all for show, and GOP leaders are pitching something different to corporate leaders in private.
Part of the reason the Left is in such a big hurry to jam through the rest of their “fundamental transformation” of the USA is that they’re pretty sure, based on the history of the last 100 years, that little of what they enact/mandate/nest into the Deep State will be reversed by successive GOP administrations and congresses. They act boldly, while we get e.g., the McConnells and McCains who couldn’t even reverse the highly unpopular Obamacare, to cite but one example.
And I understand the difficulty with reversing Obamacare, which had already embedded its tendrils deep in our healthcare system. My usual example is that in spite of uncovering Planned Parenthood’s illegal trafficking in baby parts (to say nothing of its devotion to abortion) Republicans still kept them hooked up to the federal trough.
That, to me, makes them partners with evil.
You know, it would be easier to apply Hanlon’s Razor in his case if he didn’t brag so much about being smart.
Hanlon’s Razor: Never Attribute to Malice That Which is Adequately Explained by Stupidity – Effectiviology
Rumor has it that McCarthy told the GOP on a phone call to be nice to the 13 GOPe that voted for the faux-infrastructure bill. My boy Chip Roy demanded that McCarthy enforce discipline.
Brieibart summarizes the bill:
Winners include Tesla, equity agents, breathalizers, and people named ‘Manchin’.
There is an obvious ratchet effect going on that just enough Republicans are ignorant of. It’s a disaster.
Everything Moves Towards Communism All Of The Time™
This is the first bill, the one that just went through, right? I see far too many Republicans being dismissive about this. Politically I have no idea what is the right thing, but to be that ignorant is shameful. The second one just has to be stopped.