Way Down in the Hole

Artwork by Michael DiMilo

By Geoff Carter

The Republican Party has dug itself into a deep, deep hole—maybe its own grave. After the Republican-led Georgia legislature passed a draconian voting rights bill, public protest caused a huge backlash. Threatened with boycotts and other sanctions, Coca-Cola, Delta, and other major corporations—that had somehow remained silent during the passage of the law, came out strongly against it. A joint statement from nearly two hundred other companies, including Target, PayPal, HP, Twitter, and Uber was released, also strongly condemning the new law. This turnaround was probably not motivated by twinges of conscience (after all, this is corporate America) but by the bottom line. 

Things finally came to a head for the Republican Party when Major League Baseball, in reaction to the restrictive legislation, decided to move the MLB All-Star Game and amateur draft out of Atlanta, depriving Georgia out of over $100 million in revenue.

The Republican establishment, such as it is nowadays, lashed back.  Ex-President and Emeritus Idiot-in-Chief Donald Trump stated in a press release that “…the Radical Left Democrats have played dirty by boycotting products when anything from that company is done or stated in any way that offends them. Now they are going big time with WOKE CANCEL CULTURE and our sacred elections.” He went on to encourage a boycott of Coca-Cola products, Delta, UPS, Merck, and others, saying “it’s time to go big time with WOKE CANCEL CULTURE” and that they needed to boycott. He ended by stating, “we have far more people than they do.”

This last is—unsurprisingly—not true, which is precisely why corporate America is taking its stand: Republicans do not have more people on their side. According to political historian Heather Cox Richardson in an April 4, 2021, Facebook post, polls show that most Americans do not agree with Republican policies. Seventy-nine percent of those polled supported Biden’s America Rescue Plan, yet not one Republican senator voted for it. Over eighty-four percent of citizens want stronger background checks for gun purchases, a policy that is—again—strongly opposed by Republicans. 

Joe Biden’s proposed comprehensive infrastructure bill, including the proposal to replace every lead pipe in the country, is supported by over sixty-five percent of the people, roughly the same amount who think raising taxes on the very rich and corporations is a great idea. Yet not one Republican senator is expected to vote for this bill.

In a recent Associated Press—NORC Center for Public Affairs Research Poll, over sixty percent of Americans surveyed supported automatic voter registration. A smaller majority is behind expanding access to early and mail-in voting. Needless to say, this sentiment has not been reflected in the actions of the Georgia state legislature or those of the U.S. Senate. 

Obviously, the will of the majority of Americans is not represented in a Republican policy that is still invested in protecting fossil fuel interests, the gun industry, tax breaks for the wealthy, and their own self-preservation. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has become a master of obstruction, using the filibuster to block nearly all of the Democratic bills in the Senate in order to preserve the status quo of stagnation. 

Ironically, the main reason for Republican obstinance has been to fulfill its obligation to corporate lobbyists, the very institutions now standing in opposition to them. Over two-thirds of political donations, over 4.2 million dollars, from oil giants ExxonMobil and Western Refining, go to Republican interests. While the NRA has been facing money and internal structural problems, its influence is still a driving force for the GOP in Washington. Conservative dark money from private donors like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson, whose interests align with easing government regulations and maintaining current tax laws, still flow into Republican coffers. Democrats also take their share of corporate donations; their interests, however, do not seem to be at odds with those of the American citizen.

Corporations understand their markets. They have to. And they can read the polls. They understand the American consumer wants change and they seem more than willing to comply. They’ve done it in the past, and because of it, the corporate drive for profit has resulted in genuine social change. A few years ago, a commercial for Cheerios featured a mixed family with a white mother and black father. At the time, it caused a huge outcry, but now ads featuring mixed families of all races and sexual preferences are everywhere on TV. Looking at their markets, companies understood that people wanted to see representative families in commercials and so their ads evolved. We’re no longer in an era dominated by Mr. Whipple and Mr. Clean.

McConnell and his party seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place. Their obstructionist policies support the corporate interests that have invested heavily in Republican PACs and lobby groups, policies that have ignored, or moved in opposition to, the interests of the constituencies they were elected to serve. Now that Delta and Coca-Cola and some other corporations understand that these some of these policies (like unfettered access to assault weapons) are inconsistent with the interests of their customers, they realize they will be losing money unless they stand behind change. In other words, they understand they’ve been backing the wrong horse. It doesn’t matter that they own the horse; they only know it’s not going to win.

The Republicans are in trouble. If corporate policy becomes more inclusive and representative of the people, the Republicans will become as obsolete as cassette tapes. Their PAC money will dry up and they—like the dinosaurs they are—will vanish from the face of the Earth.