by Adam Carrington
Relationships don’t always last forever. As with friendships, neighbors, employment, and even marriages, sadly, longstanding political bonds can be severed. Today, the supposed “marriage” between big business and the Republican Party seems on the rocks. It might even be in a slow-motion breakup.
A recent Wall Street Journal article recounts the growing rift between the GOP and big business. Republican leaders are more willing to criticize corporations, Republican lawmakers are proposing more legislation regulating business, and the GOP is becoming less and less dependent on corporate donations.
The union between Republicans and business is longstanding. One can trace it back at least to the New Deal, when GOP opposition to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s programs included defenses of business’s economic interests. But its roots go even deeper, back to the aftermath of the Civil War and the huge economic expansions that accompanied industrialization.
The breakup of such a longstanding relationship isn’t of little consequence. The question buried in the Wall Street Journal piece concerns the reasons for the current falling out — and whether we are seeing an actual breakup or merely a lovers’ tiff.
Social Tensions Between Republicans and Big Business
The current tensions between Republicans and big business fall into two broad categories, the first of which is social or cultural. A large section of Republicans objects to “woke capital.” Many large corporations now align their own internal policies with the dogmas of the progressive Left, especially diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) guidelines. These dogmas include stances supporting abortion on demand and acceptance of transgender categorization of sex.
Corporations then promote those dogmas in advertising. They also exert significant pressure on governments as well as individuals to conform to this ideology. Major League Baseball provides two helpful examples: One involved moving its 2021 All-Star game from Georgia to Colorado, and the other saw the Toronto Blue Jays recently cutting one of its pitchers for an “anti-LGBTQ” social media post.
Republicans have pushed back on these efforts, both in private action and in law. Bud Light’s disastrous advertising campaign featuring transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney is one example. So are Ron DeSantis’ efforts to curb Disney’s power within Florida. The governor has sought to make these companies act in a less overtly partisan and ideological fashion.
This pushback fits within the parameters of the old Republican coalition. Free-market capitalists have, for a long time, shared the party with social conservatives. As businesses have turned so explicitly against the latter, they’ve deeply undermined the goodwill they had within the party as a whole.
>But this rift also holds the most promise of reconciliation. If corporations move away from their left-leaning positions, their fit within the traditional GOP contours is restored. And the current GOP seems more accommodating on this issue in that the center of gravity appears in favor of corporate neutrality, not even of a push for right-leaning policies or ad campaigns.
The Rise of Economic Tensions
The second source of tension is newer, however, and it holds more potential for a permanent break. Some in the GOP now want to restrict businesses in their economic practices, not just in their social stances. These new calls for regulation include greater tariffs on foreign imports, higher required benefits for workers, and restraints on bonuses and other perks for business owners.
This change in economic orthodoxy stems from the GOP’s shifting electoral base. Those with higher incomes and levels of education have moved into the Democratic Party, especially within the suburbs. Working-class voters, particularly in rural areas, have become overwhelmingly Republican.
With those moves, Republicans increasingly resemble forces they once opposed. Their rhetoric about corporations sounds more like those made by the progressive movement 100 years ago. Republican leaders speak about corporations having too much economic and political power that only government intervention can curb.
GOP economics looks increasingly like the New Deal in priorities and methods as well. It is no coincidence that, in 2020, a $15 minimum wage was passed in Florida in the same election in which Donald Trump carried the state at the presidential level.
The long-term trend in the relationship between the GOP and business remains to be seen. But it will be an effect of the underlying condition of the Republican electoral coalition itself. To what degree do social conservatives continue to exert significant influence in the party even as religious voters’ share of the electorate diminishes? How far will a revamping of economic principles become standard in the new GOP? Those issues will determine if we are seeing a domestic dispute or a full-blown divorce.
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Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.
Photo “Disney at the 2022 San Francisco Pride Parade” by Gabe Classon. CC BY 2.0.
