It’s embarrassing to watch big business line up to bully Georgia into doing the Democrat Party’s bidding. Corporations are making a ridiculous, albeit irrelevant claim that “We Stand for Democracy.” If they were more honest about their values they would add “because we’re afraid to say no.”
This is the era of capitalist cowardice. The fear of woke retaliation’s impact on the bottom line is so immense that corporate America forgot that radical big government is not its friend. No amount of pandering, mea culpas, or bowing to wokeness will change the fact that companies are a revenue source first and foremost.
Old guard liberal lawmakers never had much love for big companies when they needed cash but new, radical Democrats have even bigger plans for corporate profits. If “We Stand for Democracy” signers choose to be sycophants to ultra-liberal politics that professes nothing but disdain for what big business represents then they should not be surprised when the snake they picked up bites their hand.
We stand for what, exactly?
What does corporate willingness to endorse a liberal turned radical agenda mean for our democracy? It changes nothing. Whatever Democrats want is good for democracy. Whatever they oppose is fundamentally unacceptable.
That doesn’t mean we should follow the growing herd that agrees the meaning of democracy is dictated by partisanship.
We Stand for Democracy because we’re afraid not to
We’re witnessing corporate toadyism at its most shameful.
If you aren’t familiar with “We Stand for Democracy” it doesn’t mean what you might think. As NBC News reports,1 a surprising number of U.S. companies joined an assortment of Hollywood elites and others who signed on to say no to voting legislation deemed discriminatory. Their statement was printed in two massive ads in the Washington Post and the New York Times.
I don’t know how many of the We Stand for Democracy signers read the Georgia bill that touched this off or if they know anything about the legislation outside of what the left told them to believe. The democracy they think they stand for apparently isn’t worth the same display of ID that many, if not most of these companies probably require just to enter their buildings.
The statement declares that political affiliation does not matter. The reason this document exists proves that political affiliation is all that matters and that it doesn’t care about we the people. It certainly didn’t care about the hospitality and other workers who will suffer because Major League Baseball turned tail and fled Atlanta after prominent voices like activist Stacey Abrams vented their anger about Georgia’s effort to protect the vote.
If we stand for democracy with Democrats then we also stand for this
Rep. Earl Blumenauer compared Georgia’s “attack on democracy” to the Capitol riot, Jim Crow, and KKK murders of black Americans:
The assault on our U.S. Capitol in the effort to overthrow our democratically elected government still hasn’t fully sunk in. It’s like a bad nightmare that lingers in the back of your mind. This week, it was brought back by the actions in Georgia by Brian Kemp and others to reinstate Jim Crow era election procedures. What we witnessed Thursday was the most naked attack on our democracy since the Klan killed Black Americans for voting and those who helped them.2
We heard the same Jim Crow comparison from Joe Biden.
When you stand with the left, this is the kind of destructive propaganda that you support.
Whether you know it now or not, you will also stand for the other items at the top of the radical Democrat agenda. Refusing to give democracy away is hard and especially risky in this climate. When the activists come looking for you, docile subservience will always be the safest course.
What comes next?
Reparations, anyone?
H.R. 40 was introduced on January 4, 2021, the second day of the 117th Congress.
House Democrats cosponsored this cynical betrayal of the black community and the American taxpayer. Their bill to form a reparations study commission cites “the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865.”3
Despite decades of taking credit for watching the backs of black Americans little about the dialogue on race has changed. Remember, this is the party that gave us Obamacare to protect the health of people of color. Now Democrats blame America instead of the system they designed for the disparate COVID-19 impact in minority communities.
In the unfortunate event that reparations come to fruition, we already know what will happen when the money runs out and the black community is no better off. We will be faced with more reparations for Democrats’ role in a problem they helped create:
As Democrats continued to fight against equal treatment for African-Americans, not a single Democrat in Congress voted to support the 14th Amendment which granted full citizenship to freed slaves. Nor did any Democrats vote for the 15th Amendment which gave freed slaves the right to vote.4
It’s hard to imagine that a liberal politician could support something as cynical as handing people money to atone for something lawmakers can never atone for. In the absence of believable conviction can we just be honest and call this another bribe in search of votes?
Packing the court
First it was all-out character assassination during the Kavanaugh confirmation. Then Democrats attacked Amy Coney Barrett, proving once and for all that their support for women is dictated by partisanship.
Now it’s starting to look a lot like totalitarianism on Capitol Hill. Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) waxed crazy in support of legislation to pack SCOTUS:
“Republicans stole the Court’s majority, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation completing their crime spree,” said Senator Markey.5
So if the legitimate constitutional process is a conservative crime spree, what about court packing?
Markey continues:
This legislation will restore the Court’s balance and public standing and begin to repair the damage done to our judiciary and democracy, and we should abolish the filibuster to ensure we can pass it. 6
There you have it. Court packing is about repairing our democracy. While we’re at it, so is dumping the filibuster.
Nancy Pelosi says she won’t go for it. Give it time. Democrats have been here before. Remember 2016’s “We Need Nine?” There is no end to what standing for our democracy demands.
Creating a new state
We call it Washington, D.C. H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act gives it electors, congressional representation, and a new name: Douglass Commonwealth.
I can’t imagine the response if Republicans tried to do the same thing and name the District of Columbia “Jefferson Commonwealth,” nor can I imagine how Democrats would feel about D.C. statehood if their new state had a majority of hardcore conservative voters.
Actually, I can imagine. That “commitment to democracy”7 the bill’s sponsor talks about would quickly turn into a threat against the future of America.
Free and open trespass into our country
If you support Democrats you also support open borders and the Biden administration’s see-no-evil illegal immigrant zoos.
It’s not a coincidence that H.R. 1 intends to strip our elections of the protections set in place to prevent fraud. Democrats believe that famous Obama falsehood that illegals are Americans in all ways but one. Now H.R. 1 makes it easy to turn foreign nationals into almost-citizens by giving them easy, identity-free access to illegal voting. It’s an important part of protecting our democracy for Democrats.
Tucker Carlson was spot on about tipping the composition of our electorate. No wonder the left demands his ouster.
Stealing corporate profits to fund an anti-corporate agenda
We Stand for Democracy is a strange twist to Democrats’ love hate relationship with corporations. Does big business really believe that pandering to liberal politics will divert attention from their profits?
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MN) backs a bill to “Tax Excessive CEO Pay” with all the anti-big business vitriol we expect from far left elements of her party:
Corporate greed is a disease that has long afflicted this country—but the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the gross income inequality and pay gap between CEOs and their employees in a way it never has been before,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib. “Amid this crisis, Amazon’s profits more than tripled as sales soared and its warehouse workers risked their lives to make that possible—without hazard pay. Enough is enough. 8
According to the bill’s fact sheet:
By increasing the tax rate on companies with excessive CEO pay, the bill could raise as much as $150 billion over 10 years and help reduce the rampant growth of income inequality.9
This is a shockingly naïve take on inequality. $150 billion over ten years isn’t worth the cost of the ink on the final bill in an era where Democrats spend trillions without the slightest thought to the economic impact of the debt they dump on taxpayers’ heads. Politicians may be naïve about how economics works, but I’d hazard a guess that middle class taxpayers know exactly where the money will come from.
Corporate decision makers are sadly mistaken if they think their alleged support for our democracy will engender enough good will to matter. Democrats only care about money and lots of it. Congressional radicals don’t sound like they are in a mood to mend fences:
Corporations are not people and money is not speech,” said Congresswoman Jayapal. “After the most expensive election in American history in which special interests poured millions in dark money into campaigns across this country, the We the People Amendment finally returns the power to the people, ends corporate constitutional rights, reverses Citizens United, and ensures that our democracy is really of the people, by the people — not corporations.”10
How much is standing for Democratic Party democracy worth? That’s a question to explain to shareholders when the tax man comes knocking.
Buying into an agenda that hates America
There’s a conflict implicit in standing for democracy when the agenda behind you hates nearly everything about America and wants the world know it.
Instead of taking first place as a paragon of democracy for other nations to emulate, this is how America is depicted by Biden UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield:
I shared these stories and others to acknowledge, on the international stage, that I have personally experienced one of America’s greatest imperfections. I have seen for myself how the original sin of slavery weaved white supremacy into our founding documents and principles.11
Thomas-Greenfield hopes that what happened in the U.S. last summer spreads to other countries:
Just look at the way the Black Lives Matter movement spread this past summer. . What took hold in the streets of Minneapolis made it to Monrovia, and Madrid, and London, and Sydney, and Berlin, and Cape Town, Stockholm, and Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo, and on, and on, and on.12
Perhaps she didn’t have time to view pictures and video of what happened to Minneapolis. We call that “plausible deniability.” If her words are sincere, our democracy is in big trouble and those who claim to stand for whatever the left thinks democracy means share the responsibility.
UPDATE April 23, 2021: We Stand For Democracy is based on a government by the people that doesn’t exist
The We Stand for Democracy ideal of “A government of the people, by the people” lies somewhere between a misconception and an outright falsehood. The people gave Democrats what they wanted in 2020. Now the radical left controls our government through a collection of Biden administration talking heads who disavow the rights and values of every American they disagree with.
Does anything going on in America at this moment look like government of the people, by the people?
Instead of government by the people we have totalitarian rule by left wing ideologues and radical socialist reformers. There is not a single area of America society that the elites in power are not seeking to control. From social media posts to a deluge of common words, cultural icons, historical figures, books, movies and according to RedState, soap dispensers are racist and unacceptable.13
The government has the power to dump illegal immigrants into our communities at our peril and expense. Police protect us despite the constant threat of criminal charges for violent encounters with persons of color regardless of the circumstances. The union-run schools we are forced to fund with our taxes fight reopening and when they do we have little control over the values educators instill in our kids.
Now math is racist. People with unpopular views protected by our Constitution are persecuted, lose their jobs, and are driven from society. Meanwhile, absolutely everything that runs counter to the extreme left’s divisive narrative is ignored. That includes disregarding violent protests and downplaying the incredible violence in our cities. Instead, we protect criminals with no cash bail laws, anti-policing initiatives, early release, and decarceration policies.
None of this has anything to do with democracy or government of the people, by the people. This is totalitarian rule by radical elites who got what they wanted and will do anything they can to grow their power at our expense, including removing every safeguard that protects our right to vote with the assumption that everyone who is allegedly disenfranchised will vote for Democrats so they can continue to carry out their oppressive agenda.
The fact that some of our most powerful corporations signed We Stand for Democracy doesn’t mean they have anything to do with democracy or advocating for the people. Facebook, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, and Twitter are on the signers list but they are also under fire and have much to lose if the political tide shifts.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-AR) introduced the Bust Up Big Tech Act on April 19, 2021:
Woke Big Tech companies like Google and Amazon have been coddled by Washington politicians for years. This treatment has allowed them to amass colossal amounts of power that they use to censor political opinions they don’t agree with and shut out competitors who offer consumers an alternative to the status quo. It’s past time to bust up Big Tech companies, restore competition, and give the power back to the American consumers.14
This was on the heels of last year’s move to strip Big Tech companies of their Section 230 protections. President Trump signed an executive order demanding that the FCC rethink the regulation. Democrats cast the effort as partisan and – you guessed it – a threat to our democracy:
President Trump’s draft executive order on Section 230 goes well beyond his usual threats to free speech and a free press – it’s retaliation for Twitter fact-checking his tweets to ensure that the American people have accurate information about voting, and it undermines our democracy.15
Congressional Republicans followed up with legislation:
U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced a bill to empower Americans to hold Big Tech companies accountable for acting in bad faith by selectively censoring political speech and hiding content created by their competitors. The bill is also cosponsored by Senators Mike Braun (R-IN), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Kelly Loeffler (R-GA).16
The left knows that power to the people is anathema to totalitarian rule just as it knows that Big Tech is a more than willing accomplice to the current power structure in Washington. In a society where nothing means what it used to claiming We Stand for Democracy means absolutely nothing. It sounds good on paper, but most of us can see totalitarianism for what it is.
UPDATE May 2, 2021: @CivilCandor Twitter account suspended
We Stand for Democracy should not mean we stand for what we want you to think
Twitter took offense at something I said, or at least that’s my assumption. When Jack Dorsey’s mega-corporation cancels you, you don’t always know why. Instead, you can guess and then crawl back on your knees begging for forgiveness to use the service that just silenced your voice.
I’m not going to do that.
Twitter suspended @CivilCandor once during the Obama years. I never found out why, but suspect it was because I used the word “Mexicans” in a Tweet about remarks the president made while he was in Mexico. I didn’t realize that referring to people by the country they live in is a slur, but I’m not looking for excuses to shut people up, either.
If voting is so important, why does Big Tech moderate what you hear?
Corporations who signed We Stand for Democracy declare that voting is the lifeblood of our democracy. So is an informed electorate. That doesn’t mean only being informed by one side’s agenda.
Big Tech has the power to decide what you know. Media giants can moderate, control, promote, and choke off the flow of information and ideas as they choose. In his October 14, 2020 letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) questioned Twitter’s response to the New York Post’s pre-election Hunter Biden story:
There are various reports circulating on Twitter of users unable to post a link to the New York Post story, with some users posting responses from Twitter that the content was deemed to be “potentially spammy or unsafe.”17
Twitter confirmed that it did exactly that18 and yet it signed on to a statement affirming that:
in our democracy we should not expect to agree on everything.
Apparently this means that “unsafe” is anything the left doesn’t want us to know about to guide our election decision making. Instead, our corporate rulers will decide what we agree on by snuffing out dissenting ideas and opinions in favor of whatever trending narrative they decide to endorse.
If voters don’t get both sides, there is no reason to have an election
The bad news for America is that the electorate absolutely needs to make an informed choice in the voting booth. Cramming as many people into a polling place as possible after you’ve filled their heads with what you want them to support isn’t democracy. If this is the goal we might as well eliminate voting altogether. Instead, the corporate CEOs who Stand for Democracy can have a conference call and choose our next leader without the involvement or interference of the American people.
Sources
1Timm, Jane C. “Hundreds of CEOs, celebrities, corporations join forces to oppose ‘discriminatory’ voting legislation.” nbcnews.com. April 14, 2021. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/hundreds-ceos-celebrities-corporations-join-forces-oppose-discriminatory-voting-legislation-n1264034, retrieved April 17, 2021.
2“An attack on democracy in Georgia.” blumenauer.house.gov. March 27, 2021. https://blumenauer.house.gov/media-center/enewsletters/attack-democracy-georgia, retrieved April 15, 2021.
3“H.R.40 – Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act.” congress.gov. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/40/text, retrieved April 15, 2021.
4“Rep. Gohmert Amendment to Reparations Bill Seeks to Determine if Democratic Party Should Pay Funds.” gohmert.house.gov. April 15, 2021. https://gohmert.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=399931, retrieved April 16, 2021.
5“Expand the Supreme Court: Reps. Nadler, Johnson, and Jones and Senator Markey Introduce Legislation to Restore Justice and Democracy to Judicial System.” judiciary.house.gov. April 15, 2021. https://judiciary.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=4508, retrieved April 15, 2021.
6Ibid.
7“Norton Introduces D.C. Statehood Bill with 202 Original Cosponsors in 117th Congress, Beginning Today.” norton.house.gov. January 3, 2021. https://norton.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/norton-introduces-dc-statehood-bill-with-202-original-cosponsors-in, retrieved April 15, 2021.
8“Tlaib and Colleagues Introduce Legislation to Combat Corporate Greed and End Outrageous CEO Pay.” tlaib.house.gov. March 17, 2021. https://tlaib.house.gov/media/press-releases/tlaib-and-colleagues-introduce-legislation-combat-corporate-greed-and-end, retrieved April 15, 2021.
9“The Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act.” Retrieved from https://www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/The-Tax-Excessive-CEO-Pay-Act-Summary-2021-v3162021.pdf, retrieved April 15, 2021.
10“Jayapal Introduces Constitutional Amendment to Reverse Citizens United, End Corporate Personhood.” jayapal.house.gov. April 6, 2021. https://jayapal.house.gov/2021/04/06/we-the-people-amendment/, retrieved April 16, 2021.
11“Remarks by Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield at the 30th Annual Summit of the National Action Network.” usun.usmission.gov. April 14, 2021. https://usun.usmission.gov/remarks-by-ambassador-linda-thomas-greenfield-at-the-30th-annual-summit-of-the-national-action-network/, retrieved April 17, 2021.
12Ibid.
13Miller, Mike. “Wokification Alert: Students at UCLS Claim Automatic Soap Dispensers Are Racist.” redstate.com April 22, 2021. https://redstate.com/mike_miller/2021/04/22/wokification-alert-students-at-ucla-claim-automatic-soap-dispensers-are-racist-n367103, retrieved April 23, 2021.
14“Senator Hawley Introduces the Bust Up Big Tech Act.” hawley.senate.gov. April 19, 2021. https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley-introduces-bust-big-tech-act, retrieved April 23, 2021.
15“Doyle Opposes Trump Social Media Order.” doyle.house.gov. May 28, 2020. https://doyle.house.gov/media/press-releases/doyle-opposes-trump-social-media-order, retrieved April 23, 2021.
16“Rubio, Hawley Announce Bill Empowering Americans to Hold Big Tech Companies Accountable for Acting in Bad Faith.” rubio.senate.gov. June 17, 2020. https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ContentRecord_id=47276D77-62D6-4E04-9FA2-1CD761179B90, retrieved April 23, 2021.
17“Hawley Questions Dorsey Over Twitter Blackout of Hunter Biden Story.”
hawley.senate.gov. October 14, 2020. https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-questions-dorsey-over-twitter-blackout-hunter-biden-story, retrieved May 2, 2021.
18Ibid.
Image credit:
*“What’s at Stake: Democracy.” Captured Courts. October 2020. p. 18. https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Captured%20Courts%20Democracy%20Report.pdf, retrieved April 25, 2021.
Author’s note: content edited for clarity after original publish date of April 17, 2021.
Image added April 25, 2021.
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