Robert Reich: Corporate sedition is more damaging to America than the Capitol attack

[marmar]

by Robert Reich


Capitalism and democracy are compatible only if democracy is in the driver’s seat.

That’s why I took some comfort just after the attack on the Capitol when many big corporations solemnly pledged they’d no longer finance the campaigns of the 147 lawmakers who voted to overturn election results.

Well, those days are over. Turns out they were over the moment the public stopped paying attention.

A report published last week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington shows that over the past year, 717 companies and industry groups have donated more than $18m to 143 of those seditious lawmakers. Businesses that pledged to stop or pause their donations have given nearly $2.4m directly to their campaigns or political action committees (Pacs).

....(snip)....

The Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema – whose vocal opposition to any change in the filibuster is on the verge of dooming voting rights – received almost $2m in campaign donations in 2021 even though she is not up for re-election until 2024. Most of it came from corporate donors outside Arizona, some of which have a history of donating largely to Republicans. .............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/16/corporate-sedition-capitol-attack-democracy-political-financing-donations-sinema-voting-rights

[BeckyDem]

1. He is correct but some corporate money is worse than others.

Elizabeth Warren warns:

Excerpt: The Claremont Institute, once a little-known think tank often confused with the liberal-arts college of the same name, has emerged as a driving force in the conservative movement’s crusade to use bogus fraud claims about the 2020 election to rewrite voting laws and remake the election system in time for the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential election. Most infamously, one of the group’s legal scholars crafted memos outlining a plan for how then-Vice President Mike Pence could potentially overturn the last election.

Conservative mega-donors like what they see.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/devos-bradley-claremont-trump-election-fraud-insurrection-1274253/

[Budi]

2. I'd like to hear Mr Reich addess the Corporate players of Silicon Valley

& their role in funding & messaging against Democracy.

Who are they & show a paper trail of their enormous influence on what brought us here today.

Thanks

[Bev54]

3. I think the insurrection woke a lot of people up to a lot of nefarious deeds going on

in the US, in corporate, politics national and local. Before it was decisions made that was concerning, now those concerns are front and centre.