Sorry, Joe, What’s in It for Us?

Sorry, Joe, What’s in It for Us?

We Pay Good Money for Your Votes; Besides Trump Really Might Win

“No matter how genuinely they support or don’t support specific pieces, many are animated by greater antipathy toward Biden than attraction to Trump. And they’re averting their gazes from the parts they don’t like.” 

 NY Times Journalist Maggie Haberman, April 17th on US CEOs now supporting Trump.

“[Trump] looks at the economy from Mar-a-Lago, where he and his rich friends embrace the failed trickle-down policies that have failed working families for more than 40 years.” 

 Joe Biden, April 16th.

“Most C.E.O.s are not wild about a second Trump term. They had a rocky ride the first time around — though they did get the tax cuts and deregulation they wanted — and they are pretty sure he will bring instability, which is generally bad for business… Having said that, many are also down on President Biden, who has been much more aggressive about regulating business. And I don’t have the impression that they have absorbed the messages that Trump and his allies have been sending about what a second term would look like.” 

 NY Times Journalist Jonathan Mahler, April 17th on US CEOs now supporting Trump.

No matter how you look at it, modern state and federal legislation has always catered to special interests. Frequently, laws intended to regulate certain industries are often handed over to trade associations, major corporations or their law firms for drafting, despite the most obvious conflict of interest. This allows elected candidates to tout to voters their having passed regulations and laws reining in the excesses fomented by big business – mostly environmental and financial controls – and still “wink-wink” at their campaign contributors that nothing has changed.

Citizens United vs FEC, a 2010 Supreme Court decision, removed the spending caps on issue-oriented political contributions by treating these entities as individual people with individual people’s 1st Amendment rights. The resulting tsunami of political SuperPACs, mostly seriously right of center, allowed big money to dominate the political discourse arena like never before. If you wonder how MAGA took over the House of Representatives, look no further than this massive change.

And woe to a candidate who suggests raising taxes on the rich – even while maintaining taxes for the upper middle class of earners at present rates – when there is no check or balance on the amount the rich can spend to defeat such efforts. Generally, the corporate argument usually centers on job-killing or an out-of-control (but unsupported notion of a) freedom-crushing “deep state.” For many corporations and their richest controlling shareholders, the notion of a battle between democracy and autocracy doesn’t move them. Most do not believe that Trump and his Heritage Foundation federal appointment election committee would really be able to implement his threat of purging, even arresting, his opponents and undoing entire federal regulatory agencies. They are narrow focused on reducing costly regulations and lowering taxes further.

It does not matter that global warming related disasters are annually costing the world trillions of dollars and the lives and health of millions, the regulations set to limit and control these greenhouse gas emissions cost too many companies too much. Protecting consumers from avaricious corporations seeking to contain consumer rights, for the same cost-driven reason, is their enemy. And even though the United States effectively taxes the rich less than most developed nations (mostly by exemptions and loopholes; less than by simple rate hikes), the rich want cuts! They tout the supply side/trickle down “a rising tide floats all boats” economic theory to sell their program, even though there are no significant instances where this really happens.

Make no mistake; Trump is bad for business in many ways that most CEOs know. His policies are often unclear, whimsical, instill instability which is never good for business, and tout very unpopular and often religiously based views. Yet Republicans from Trump to Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Texas’ Greg Abbott are quite willing to impose restrictions on companies that defy their views on inclusion, who support “woke” sensibilities in their corporate governance (such as banning companies engaged in environmental, social, and governance [ESG] investing from state contracts) or open tolerance of LGBTQ+ employees. Corporate America does not want to fight even an American autocrat; it’s just too risky… and for what?

In the early period of Trump’s ascendancy toward the GOP to a 2024 nomination, big business joined the rising international chorus that clearly found the ex-president’s candidacy to be a dangerous global threat… but as Trump appeared to pass Biden in the polls, corporate America had to let Trump know they really did not oppose him. As NY Times Magazine Journalist Jonathan Mahler observes in his April 7th Magazine article: “There was anxiety in the thin mountain air when the planet’s economic leaders gathered in January at Davos for the 54th meeting of the World Economic Forum. Donald Trump had just trounced Nikki Haley in the Iowa caucuses, all but securing the Republican nomination for president. Haley was reliable, a known quantity. A resurgent Trump, on the other hand, was more worrying.

“The Davos attendees needed reassurance, and Jamie Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, had some to offer. In an interview with CNBC that made headlines around the world, Dimon praised Trump’s economic policies as president. ‘Be honest,’ Dimon said, sitting against a backdrop of snow-dusted evergreens, dressed casually in a dark blazer and polo shirt. ‘He was kind of right about NATO, kind of right on immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Trade. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China.’ Asked which of the likely presidential candidates would be better for business, he opted not to pick a side.” But he did.

While early in Trump’s campaign, his biggest corporate donors sat on the sidelines, watching Trump’s march through a litany of civil and criminal litigation, uttering threats to anyone who opposed him… not writing those big checks that typified his 2015/16 campaign. Trump openly embraced the policies of elected Hungarian autocrat and prime minister Viktor Orbán, a leader who used government regulations to push companies (many in media) who opposed his policies out of business to be bought out by his cronies. As Biden’s support in available polls dwindled, notwithstanding the progression of Trump’s criminal trials, more than a few of those big donors, making excuses like those of Jamie Dimon above, and lined as big Trump donors again.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we are paying a very steep price for enabling and encouraging special interests to be the major deciders of most relevant policies and candidates, especially those plutocrats who are focused on stopping candidates’ trying to contain their march to even greater profitability.