Wow: Big political news, folks!
In an astonishing twist, some far-right-wing Republican groups and politicians are demanding that their longtime corporate allies – such as Walmart, the Koch brothers, GE, and Wall Street banks – stick to their business and stop interfering in the people’s political decisions. One group, the National Center for Public Policy Research, bluntly declares that it now prefers “corporate behavior without partisan influences.” It’s even urging corporate shareholders to pass resolutions requiring top executives to halt their overbearing political intrusion. What an unbelievable breakthrough for progressive reform!
Well, it would be… if true. But it’s a fraud. NCPPR only wants corporate powers to stop politicking against right-wing issues. Specifically, the tricksters demand that corporations cease all efforts to advance diversity, equality, and inclusiveness in American society. Also, they oppose any corporate embrace of Pride events, or corporate acknowledgement of America’s history of institutional racism. And, they say, corporations should stop all efforts to combat climate change, since right-wing orthodoxy says global warming is a hoax. Forget head-in-the-sand politics, NCPPRers want to bury political reality itself in the sand.
Now for the Good News: They’re buffoons. Even profiteering investors aren’t buying their hokum. Their “anti-WOKE” resolutions are being rejected by 98 percent of shareholders’ votes! Even in the rigged system of corporate voting, that’s a stunning rejection. Meanwhile, shareholder proposals to support progressive ideals and policies have been gaining ground, now winning a fourth to a third of the vote. That’s three times better than the support that such proposals got 20 years ago.
This is further proof that the fundamental political barrier to right-wing extremism is that the vast majority of Americans actually believe in economic fairness, social justice… and reality.
Photo via Dissent Pins.
The Right-Wing Turns Anti-Corporate! Sorta… Not Really.