Corporate America has been so embedded in one political party that many corporations & corporate-tied vested interests have, indirectly, provided financial support to the violent overthrow of our government.
Since many in the GOP, almost exclusively an agency for corporate privilege, supported the violent overthrow of democracy – tacitly or openly, it is a good bet that corporate donors were heavily supporting campaigns of GOP members up to the January 6th insurrection. After a short hiatus, many have returned to support party members who now follow Donald Trump, a liar and an insurrectionist cad.
Not only has the Republican Party been seized by radical Republicans who favor taking power through violence, if necessary, but Republican-controlled states have targeted those most like to vote Democrat for disenfranchisement.
Thus, rather than appeal to a growing percentage of non-white voters, the Republican Party is adopting other means of victory, including targeting nonwhites for disenfranchisement and, in effect, giving money the vote. Of course, the January 6th insurrection elevated the Trump tactic to stay in power with violence: the intention to override President Biden’s election in 2020.
And now Republicans are on board with the Trump tactic of insurrection.
Since the SCOTUS Citizens United ruling in 2010, an outgrowth of Republican right-wing appointments to the Supreme Court bench, money inundates political campaigns.
It makes a relative mockery of an American democracy where a secret Super PAC (Political Action committee) can spend unlimited amounts of money on almost anything political, whether candidates or issues like nominating Supreme Court justices. Furthermore, PACs and Super PACs, under IRS tax code provision 527, are exempt from taxes, facilitating their continued existence.
While money as a vote is being strengthened, a majority of Republican-controlled states are weakening the individual vote by selectively making it harder for nonwhites to vote, most particularly those who vote for Democrats.
Such an authoritarian trend is becoming more and more difficult to fight as Republicans are against any legislation to make democracy work at any level of government, for example, utilizing the filibuster in the US Senate. Thus, it follows that such voting restrictions will assure the election of Republicans.
Without a clear majority in the Senate any attempt to pass legislation to restore unrestricted voting in Republican states will fail. Even a small majority is being hampered by two conflicted members of the majority party, making voting restriction in Republican states stand. Passage of universal voting rights in the Senate became impossible as two Democrats would not vote to suspend the filibuster.
Since Republicans have become an anti-democratic party, it is doubtful that a clear majority of Democrats in the Senate will be possible in the future without a popular uprising. In the current Congress, Progressive legislation like Build Back Better (BBB), helping the majority of children, parents, and women navigate in the workplace and stave off poverty, can’t even get a majority among Democrats, now with a razor-thin majority. With Republicans unified against progress for the people, voting-rights, and people-rights are losers.
That means no relief against Pharma’s obscene prices for prescription drugs plaguing seniors and families, like insulin, cancer drugs, not to speak of overall preventive care. It means fifty percent of children will go back to the poverty category, since BBB will not reinstate the expired Child Tax Credit temporarily granted by the American Rescue Plan early in President Biden’s presidency.
It means no policies and investments to save families thousands of dollars in child care and preschool costs, no investments in child care and pre-K. There will be no economic policy to support 2.3 million yearly jobs for child care, pre-K jobs and long-term care jobs.
Republicans do not support such jobs programs, child-care programs, and health care programs. Their priorities are for tax cuts for the rich and corporations. Unfortunately, Democrats need larger majorities in both houses to achieve the goals of a Build Back Better Plan, something that may not be possible, especially with Republican-controlled states limiting the vote for voters who vote for the Democrats, something the razor-thin majority of Democrats could not stop.
Not only are mounds of money resuming for political party members favoring violence to retain control of government, but major corporations are supporting this corruption as normalcy. With such attitudes prevailing, prospects for reform or even returning to a vibrant democracy seem dim.
For example, signs are not good when major corporations, greed-bound and self-serving, ignore attacks on democracy. Salesforce.com provides Republican National Committee (RNC) records to the January 6th House committee. This is a tech giant that took $2.7 million from Trump on 1/7/21 (day after insurrection) to amplify the Big Lie (that Trump won the 2020 election) so that Trump could raise money on the lie. Meanwhile, not wanting disclosure, the RNC sues Salesforce.com.
Even today, CBS News hires a Mick Mulvaney for a gig as a paid contributor! Think of it. The powers-that-be for a major news network legitimize a loyalist of a totally corrupt anti-democratic ex-president guilty of multiple felonies, who topped them off with the ultimate crime of trying to seize power from a legitimately-elected successor.
American corporations should be treating members of the GOP like lepers not reward them with gifts. Republicans still wrap their party in Donald J. Trump. Remember, he is our betrayer.
You don’t give legitimacy to agents who are mixing poisons to do you in unless you want death for a storied democracy you are supposed to pledge allegiance to.
