It's None of Your Business

Whether it’s been billionaire CEOs like Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg acquiescing to Trump merely in anticipation of him taking office, not wanting to offend him and impact their businesses, or ABC News settling a defamation lawsuit by Trump that he had almost no chance of winning, there have been stories, such as one in RawStory about other businesses doing the same, making small capitulations to protect themselves. 

Further, Rolling Stone had a story headlined “Companies are Scrambling to Fund Trump’s Inauguration.  He’s Keeping Track.”  They note that since the Trump Inaugural Committee is registered as a "non-profit" (seriously, when was the last time that Trump ever did something “non-profit”?  Even his charity foundation had to be shut down for a “shocking pattern of illegality” and “illegally misusing charitable funds at the Trump Foundation for political purposes.”), it won’t have to disclose its donors for a long time.  However, reporters have found that among its top donors each giving $1 million are such major corporations as Amazon; Charter Communications; Ford; Intuit; Toyota; Uber (plus another $1 million from its CEO); Meta, the parent company of Facebook; the drug lobby Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers (or PhRMA) and Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI.  Along with donations from AT&T; Bank of America; General Motors, and Goldman Sachs.  Again, this is just a partial list that has been uncovered, since (as noted) names don’t yet have to be disclosed

The Wall Street Journal, as well, reported that the money the Trump inaugural fund has taken in is not only coming from companies that didn’t previously support him, but it has, in fact, “received donations or pledges from at least 11 companies or lobbying groups that pledged to cut off or pause their political giving after Jan. 6.”

All seemingly out of anticipatory fear that Trump will retaliate against business that don’t curry favor with him.

What leaps out to me from all of this is not the caving in to Trump, nor that they are seemingly caving in merely out of expectation of having the force of government go after them for no reason other than Trump’s retribution for not being loyal enough.

No, what leaps out to be is that Trump’s party is the one that is supposed to be Business Friendly.  The party that Americans tend to think will be good for the economy (despite evidence generally to the contrary).  The party that supposedly is on the side of business.

While in reality, it’s the party that is threatening business, twisting its corporate arms to play ball or be in trouble.  Face investigations.  Have expansion plans obstructed.  Have mergers blocked.  Have added, unnecessary regulations poured on to intentionally single them out and hinder them.

All from the Party Friendly to Business.

In a perfect world, all of these companies will have long memories and harbor their resentment at being strong-armed by corporate blackmail -- and when the mid-terms come around, they will hedge their bets to support a party and candidates that might on occasion require regulations they don't love, but are at least fair across the board, allowing them to run their own business without being under fear of vengeance and won't take them in a back alley to kneecap them.  Alas, we don't live in a perfect world, so we'll still likely be dealing with the perception of MAGOPs -- or as Yale historian Timothy Snyder, an expert on authoritarians, coined the Musk-Trump partnership (for now),  the Mump Regime -- being the fictional Party Friendly to Business.

As the expression goes -- With friends like these, who needs enemies...