AP Photo
Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepares to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, thousands of people have gathered to show their support for President Donald Trump and his claims of election fraud.(AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Sunday, Jan. 17, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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Some of America’s biggest corporations say they have seen enough of the Republican Party’s destructive politics and are halting their donations to GOP candidates.
Assuming they stick to that commitment, bravo to those companies. This is a responsible way to address the GOP’s extremism in the aftermath of the mob violence in the U.S. Capitol.
As of the middle of last week, more than a dozen companies had announced they were suspending donations. And one company, Kansas City-based Hallmark Cards Inc., went a step further in demanding refunds of contributions it made to two of the Republican senators who helped fuel the rampage by contesting the results of the Electoral College vote, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall.
Others halting donations included Coca-Cola, Ford, Google, Dow, Marriott, JP Morgan Chase, American Express, American Airlines, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and Major League Baseball. While not all of them expressly indicated they were focusing solely on Republican donations, it’s clear that the movement is aimed at the lawmakers who lined up with President Donald Trump in his false claims of election rigging.
That’s commendable corporate leadership. It’s a good model for other businesses and for individuals too.
If you don’t like what you’re seeing from the Republican Party — and who would, besides violent extremists and crazed conspiracy theorists — pulling their funding is a way to insist the GOP reform its ways. No reasonable business wants to be associated with a political party that encourages armed insurrection.
Let’s be clear: The loss of the corporate donations isn’t likely to keep GOP lawmakers up at night. Although the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling opened the door to megadonations by individual donors, there are still caps on corporate donations. We’re talking about contributions of $5,000.
Yet it’s still a meaningful gesture, as long as companies stick to their guns and aren’t simply pausing the donations while waiting for backlash from the violence to blow over. Irrespective of the financial impact, politicians crave the stamp of approval that the business community can provide.
As we all know, great things can happen when the corporate community exercises social responsibility.
Take the pressure that corporations placed on states like North Carolina and Texas in opposition to same-sex bathroom bills. When companies threatened to leave Texas for other states in support of LGBTQ equality, they helped defeat the bathroom bill there. And similar pushback in North Carolina, including the NCAA announcing it would not hold college sports events in the state, played a role in prompting the repeal of a similar bill.
Were these companies singlehandedly responsible for the demise of these appalling bills? Absolutely not, because the work of advocacy groups played a huge role. But lawmakers couldn’t ignore the potential consequences of the corporations’ opposition, which included lost jobs and the loss of millions of dollars in commerce from events.
In cutting off the money tap to GOP candidates, companies are following this same constructive path. Complaining to these candidates is one thing, but the only voices the GOP candidates truly listen to are those of Trump and his rabid supporters. Hitting them in their campaign accounts is a more concrete way of expressing dissent.
More importantly, it’s morally right to not support the destruction of this country. Too often in our cynical times we forget that taking a simple moral stand is worthwhile, even if it arrives later than one might hope.
And that’s not the only way companies are stepping up. Some have called for Trump’s immediate removal either through the 25th Amendment or impeachment, with a prominent example being the National Association of Manufacturers. Immediately after the violence broke out, the CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called for restoration of order and urged Congress to approve the Electoral College results.
There is a flip side to this, of course. Some of the corporations arriving at the right decision now have spent years supporting Trump and the GOP as they disfigured America and its values by flooding the public space with lies and cruelty.
Fortunately, it’s not too late to make a positive change. Although it’s too bad it took an overrun of the U.S. Capitol for these companies to reach their limit with GOP politics, it’s to their credit that they’re taking a positive step.
For the good of Las Vegas and the nation, local donors should get on board. It’s time to start healing the country by showing the Republican Party — in a dollars-and-cents way — that Americans will no longer tolerate its embrace of extremism and the politics of hate and fear. To regain trust, the GOP should return to its roots as a party of conservative ideas and support of democracy, not a party of lies, conspiracy theories and idolatry.
