American politics only has a handful of trends that have endured for generations, but near the top of the list is the seemingly unshakable partnership between corporate America and the Republican Party. One of the defining characteristics of the GOP for over a century is its commitment to the nation’s largest and most powerful businesses.
What corporate leaders want, Republicans have told us, is what corporate leaders should get. What’s good for business is what’s good for America. The government must never be in a position to pick winners and losers: Those decisions should be left to the private sector, guided by good ol’ fashioned free market principles. For politicians to intervene in corporations’ decisions is to open the door to socialism.
But as regular readers know, over the last year or so, the relationship between the GOP and its corporate partners has been tested in unfamiliar ways.
The first sign of strain came about a year ago, when Republicans started imposing new voting restrictions, prompting criticisms from many prominent American businesses. Many in the party responded by threatening major corporations with retaliatory policy measures if they said anything negative in public about the GOP’s voter-suppression campaign.
Indeed, it was a year ago this week when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told corporations to “stay out of politics,” adding that business “will invite serious consequences” if they take public stands on issues in ways Republicans don’t like.
In the months that followed, related examples came to the fore. Corporate leaders and GOP officials clashed over efforts to end the pandemic. And raising the debt ceiling. And cooperating with the bipartisan investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, which led to an unusually aggressive threat from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who vowed to retaliate against businesses that provided information the GOP preferred to keep secret.
Now, in the wake of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signing what some have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill into law, the Republican Party’s culture war agenda not only has a new front, it’s also leading to different kinds of threats. As MSNBC colleague Ja’han Jones explained yesterday:
Now, like a disgruntled despot demanding fealty, Florida Republicans and their allies are looking for ways to punish Disney for its stance — belated as it was — in support of LGBTQ people. Last week, Florida state Rep. Spencer Roach said he and other lawmakers have considered revoking a state law enacted in 1967 that effectively gives Disney unique autonomy over its massive Florida properties, including Disney World. DeSantis has also called on lawmakers to re-evaluate Disney’s special status after saying the company’s criticism “crossed the line.”
At face value, the fact that state policymakers are eager to revisit generous benefits to a massive, multi-national corporation may be a popular move, even on the left. (As a native Floridian, I’ve long marveled at just how expansive Disney’s benefits are in the Sunshine State.)
But no one should miss the forest for the trees: As Ja’han explained very well, the effort launched by DeSantis and his allies is part of an authoritarian-style push in which partisans are exploring using the power of the state to punish a business for criticizing one of their regressive policies.
What we’re witnessing isn’t a change in Republican Party orthodoxy related to the free market, but rather, a corruption of that orthodoxy. Prominent GOP officials want corporate partners, so long as they’re silent partners.
Those who fall out of line, and dare to express societal opinions that Republicans find inconvenient, should expect adverse governmental consequences.
Indeed, there is no subtlety to any of this. A prime-time Fox News host told viewers last week that the next time the GOP is in the majority, companies such as Disney should expect the government to retaliate in a variety of ways, including anti-trust measures and copyright/trademark protections.
The power of the state will serve as an extension of the Republican Party’s cultural grievances, and businesses whose opinions are deemed unacceptable will be punished accordingly. Corporate giants that appear “woke” should expect to be bullied into submission by those controlling the levers of governmental power.
We saw some of this kind of corruption during Donald Trump’s presidency, when the White House was credibly accused of making administrative decisions based on whether he saw corporations as political foes. The message at the time was that businesses expecting fair treatment from the administration had to “play ball” with the president’s wishes.
In 2022, that message is being amplified by some the GOP’s most powerful voices.
Indeed, new rules appear to be taking shape. As the Republican Party now sees it, corporations are allowed to give money to the GOP, stand in the way of unionization efforts, pollute, and partner with Republicans in opposition to economic measures such as minimum wage increases and paid family-leave proposals.
But by the same rules, as the Republican Party now sees it, corporations are not allowed to support voting rights, endorse LGBTQ+ rights, take steps to end the pandemic, call for debt-ceiling increases, or cooperate with congressional investigations the party don’t like.
The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent added yesterday, “Some on the right, particularly the new nationalists seeking to build a post-Trump Trumpism, actually do believe the state should be weaponized to fight the culture wars as aggressively as possible.” They appear to have more than a few allies in the contemporary GOP.
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