Conservatives Must Unite and Apply Counter-Pressure
If corporations want to go woke, they need to know they'll go broke.
CNBC is the latest media outlet to run stories targeting corporations for giving money to Republicans who support election reform measures. Here’s a tweet from their reporter:
This comes as CBS and 60 Minutes invent a scandal to attack both Ron DeSantis and Publix grocery stores, a DeSantis donor, over COVID vaccines. 60 Minutes selectively edited Governor DeSantis during an ambush interview to make something innocent look like a scandal.
Even Florida Democrats are stepping forward to defend Ron DeSantis —that’s how egregious 60 Minutes’ actions were.
CBS, for its part, ran a “news article” by a “reporter” with steps activists could take to build pressure on companies to pressure Republican lawmakers. It was not an opinion piece, but an actual news article that attempted to shame various corporations for giving to Republicans.
The New York Times is also in on the pressure campaign against corporate America.
Conservatives are busy fighting with each other over balance, messaging, and policy. They do not have time to fight back. They are going to need to unite across the board. For years, woke employees have been moving up the ladder in Fortune 500 companies and now set policy, funding, and advocacy goals. They will collaborate with woke activists to make it happen.
No conservative should want increased government regulation or taxation of corporate America. But if we cannot unite now to push back on corporate America getting into politics with the left, conservatives will give up listening to their better angels and go for punitive measures that actually advance the left’s goals for government growth, taxation, and regulation against corporations that will badly undermine the free market and small businesses too.
We will cut off our nose to spite our face.
We must, however, begin now aggressively pushing back on corporations involving themselves in public policy and advocacy. That requires credibility from the right on these issues. It means we have to stop elevating insane crazy people with delusional conspiracy theories. It requires we respect the processes of elections. It requires that we pick a few companies and beat the hell out of them publicly through boycotts, pressure from Republican government, and shaming from the right. Honestly, however much many conservatives refuse to admit it, this is a logical consequence of the post-election crazy town mess that ultimately ended with major conservative leaders calling for a rejection of the Electoral College and some insurrectionists storming the Capitol.
The movement needs to move on from that and pause the infighting along the way. We need to, together and united, push back hard.
The easiest target, frankly, is Major League Baseball. Its customer base is older and tilts right. Its Commissioner wants to boycott one game in Georgia while keeping his membership at Augusta National.
Greg Abbott of Texas has come out swinging saying Texas stands with Georgia and MLB’s All Star Game is unwelcome there. Other Republican Governors should do the same. Then perhaps the GOP should have some counter programming at the Braves Stadium the same night as the All Star Game. Maybe get Donald Trump on stage there and see who gets better ratings.
The second thing we should do is commit to a ban on corporate welfare to attract Fortune 500 companies to red states. They very clearly are taking the corporate welfare of red states and bringing in their blue state, woke employees. Conservative states should not be engaged in crony capitalism anyway. Employ sound tax policy and fiscal management so companies want to come naturally, instead of through incentive. Promote local businesses and corporations and provide a stable, conservative environment for them to grow.
Conservatives need to push back hard as a movement or they will find themselves co-opted by the angry hordes who are willing to advance terrible policy just for vengeance.
I completely agree that companies who demand, yes demand tax benefits for moving to certain cities should be held accountable for their reckless statements.
I disagree, however, with your statement that this is "a logical consequence post-election crazy town mess..."
The entire 4 years of Trump's administration was leftist crazy-town BS. The media played along with lies about how they interpreted what Trump said, and the volume grew for 4 years. Now, with both houses and the Presidency, rather than the BS calming down, it is getting worse and worse. This appears to be the logical consequence of the right not calling BS on the left for all those years.
In fact, this concern has been mentioned in your pages for weeks now. Nice guys never win was my statement. If we continue to stay nice guys, things will get tougher.
The real "mess" part of that election is the goof balls who stayed home vs casting a vote in the senatorial runoff - I don't care what the impression is/was, not voting is pure idiotic.
OK, Erick.... Although I agree with your sentiments, how can "It means we have to stop elevating insane crazy people with delusional conspiracy theories," and "Then perhaps the GOP should have some counter programming at the Braves Stadium the same night as the All Star Game. Maybe get Donald Trump on stage there and see who gets better ratings," be in the same opinion piece?