Republicans’ relationship with corporations is baffling. One minute, they are protecting corporations from what they envision as a marauding band of liberals. The next, they are the marauding band trying to silence corporations if they get too mouthy.
For the longest time—forever, really—I thought being pro-business was woven into the DNA of the GOP, especially when it comes to walling off corporations from such things as regulation and taxation. In this regard, Republicans were true to form in denouncing President Biden’s “American Jobs Plan.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) decried what he called “massive tax increases” in the $2.3 trillion legislation. Last weekend, he declared that the Biden proposal would undo “the tax relief that drove our economy to a 50-year high.” Then, after losing Georgia in the presidential election and the state’s two Senate seats to Democrats, Republicans in Atlanta rammed through a law that limits ballot access. Coca-Cola and Delta spoke out against it. Major League Baseball moved the All-Star Game from the state in response. All this happened after a group of 72 Black business leaders called on their colleagues to fight the rising wave of voter restrictions in Georgia and elsewhere. At first, McConnell went ballistic.
“From election law to environmentalism to radical social agendas to the Second Amendment, parts of the private sector keep dabbling in behaving like a woke parallel government,” McConnell wrote in a statement Monday. “Corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order.” But McConnell tried to walk back the threat Wednesday when he said, “My principal complaint is, they didn’t read the darn bill.” I’m not sure calling attention to the details in the darn bill is wise, given that the legislation is propelled by lies told by President Donald Trump, who asked a Georgia election official to “find 11,780 votes” to overturn the state’s presidential results.
In 2011, the year before he became the Republican presidential nominee, former Massachusetts governor and then-Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah got into a terse exchange at the Iowa State Fair. During his soapbox speech, Romney said he was against raising taxes.
But when someone yelled, “Corporations!” Romney responded, “Corporations are people, my friend.” Thanks to the Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case in 2010, corporations, like people, have First Amendment rights. McConnell hailed that ruling at the time.
But that was then. Today’s Republican Party is eager to silence corporations that stand by their values and those of their employees and customers. No value is more worthy of active protection than the right to vote of every citizen.