I'm not huge on litmus tests, but I do consider it as essential to substantiation of someone's claim to be a conservative that they be on board with free-market economics. That he or she have the principles laid out by Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat, Ludwig von Mises, Henry Hazlitt and Frederich Hayek ingrained in his or her bones. Economic freedom is essential to the viability of any other kind of freedom.
But it's clear that the Trump phenomenon brought us a "populist" take on economics that depends less on immutable principles than it does on appeals to Little Guys and Average Joes. It's going to be hard to wrest that terrain back from them in the struggle to reclaim the mantle of actual conservatism.
And conservatives are sure not getting any help from post-America's big corporations, That's been true for some time, but the momentum has been increasing in 2021. It's given the populists the perfect excuse to thumb their nose at that whole sector:
Republicans and corporate America are on the outs.
In the past week alone, American Airlines and computer company Dell came out strongly against GOP-led bills that place restrictions on voting in their home base of Texas. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a rising star in Republican Party, continued to take heat for nixing a bill that would have imposed a ban on transgender athletes in sports, citing the potential impact on her state's bottom line. And conservatives spent days bashing "vaccine passports" some businesses think are needed to return to normal.
And then there was Georgia, where the Republican-controlled state House narrowly voted to end a tax break worth millions that Delta enjoys on jet fuel after the airline's CEO — along with the CEO of Coca-Cola, another major Atlanta-based business — condemned new voting restrictions in the state. (The GOP-led state Senate did not take up the measure.) On Friday, Major League Baseball pulled this year's All-Star Game out of Atlanta in protest of that same law.
Republicans were outraged.
"Boycott baseball and all of the woke companies that are interfering with Free and Fair Elections," former President Donald Trump said in a statement. "Are you listening Coke, Delta, and all!"
"Why are we still listening to these woke corporate hypocrites on taxes, regulations & anti-trust?" Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted.
Such public dust-ups between businesses and members of the GOP are becoming more frequent, though the divide — possibly one of the most consequential in U.S. politics and society — is years in the making. The shift is the product of a Republican Party increasingly driven by "culture war" issues that animate a base invigorated by Trump and corporate powerhouses that are under more pressure than ever to align themselves with the left on voting rights, LGBTQ rights and anti-racist efforts.
The result is a fraying in relations between a GOP that has for years advocated for the kinds of libertarian economic policies that have widely benefited these businesses and companies that are using their might to help advance racial and social justice causes.
"We have long thought and still think of the big institutional drivers of this culture war as more in academia, the arts, the media, and corporate America has mostly sat it out until recently," retiring Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., told NBC News in an interview. He added that while he does not think of corporate America "as the biggest player yet," companies coming off the sidelines "can change the dynamic."
It's to the point at which some are ready to quit speaking of people's - and that's what we're talking about, even in the case of big corporations, since they're owned by investors - right to keep government's hands off their money:
"Talking about corporate tax cuts and reducing burdensome regulations doesn't do it for our new voters," this person said. "I guess it's not that exciting. It might be exciting for those country club Republicans we lost, but we're losing them."
What it means for policy is less clear, however, even as some Republicans embrace some leftward policies like an increase in the minimum wage. Under Trump, Republicans implemented a tax cut that saw much of its benefits go toward some of these same corporations conservatives now decry for their social activism. Few Republicans are turning away from the traditional agenda of lower taxes and deregulation — though some prominent Republicans like Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Rubio have sought to position themselves as corporate antagonists.
Toomey said he's seen the "rise in economic populism among some Republicans," with the possibility of more "anti-corporate momentum" should corporations decide "to become part of the left-wing social movement."
Toomey makes this observation objectively, but it's not his own viewpoint, to be sure:
Toomey, a former president of the Club for Growth, is not on board with such moves.
"I'm still going to fight for the right economic policy, right? I'm not going to say, 'Well, let's punish them for their bad behavior,' because unfortunately punishment is inflicted on the American people and our economy," he said. "So I'm not going to be part of that."
There's plenty of cluelessness here to go around. The populists have lost sight of the principles of freedom and limited government, and the corporate sector has signed on to all this "stakeholder theory" and social-justice nonsense, probably at the expense of the maximum profitability it owes its actual owners.
It's so hard for clarity to get an airing in post-America.
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