(Any resemblance between the USA today and the Weimar Republic is purely
coincidental.)
NYT, Jan. 8, 2021
After Riot, Business Leaders Reckon With Their Support for Trump
By David Gelles
Big business struck a Faustian bargain with President Trump.
When he said something incendiary or flirted with authoritarianism,
high-minded chief executives would issue vague, moralizing statements
and try to distance themselves from a pro-business president who coveted
their approval.
But when Mr. Trump cut taxes, rolled back onerous regulations or used
them as props for a photo op, they would applaud his leadership and grin
for the cameras.
After Wednesday’s events on Capitol Hill, the true cost of that
balancing act was plain to see, even through the tear gas wafting in the
rotunda.
The executives who stood by Mr. Trump were ultimately among his
enablers, bestowing him with the imprimatur of mainstream business
credibility and normalizing a president who has turned the country
against itself.
“This is what happens when we subordinate our moral principles for what
we perceive to be business interests,” said Darren Walker, the president
of the Ford Foundation and a board member at Square and Ralph Lauren.
“It is ultimately bad for business and bad for society.”
From the start of Mr. Trump’s presidency, corporate America has
vacillated between supporting the president’s economic agenda and
condemning his worst impulses.
Early in Mr. Trump’s tenure, dozens of business leaders joined a pair of
presidential advisory councils. Eager to have a seat at the table and
sway policies to their liking, blue-chip chief executives set aside
their reservations about Mr. Trump’s character failings, his history of
racist behavior, the allegations of sexual assault against him and his
declarations of legal impunity.
“He is the president of the United States. I believe he is the pilot
flying our airplane,” Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan, said at
the time. “I would try to help any president of the United States
because I’m a patriot.”
The effort didn’t last long. Months after the groups were formed, they
disbanded following Mr. Trump’s insistence that there were “very fine
people on both sides” during a spasm of white nationalist violence in
Charlottesville, Va.
In the aftermath, business leaders tried to explain how they had gotten
themselves into the mess.
“I joined because the president asked me to join, and I thought it was
the right thing to do as the C.E.O. of a company like Merck,” Ken
Frazier, one of the most prominent Black executives in the country, who
was the first to quit the councils, said shortly after leaving. “I just
felt that as a matter of my own personal conscience, I could not remain.”
But money has a short memory, and it wasn’t long after Charlottesville
that Mr. Trump was back in the good graces of corporate America. Just
months later, the Trump administration passed a tax overhaul that
delivered a windfall to corporations and wealthy individuals.
By lowering corporate taxes, Mr. Trump delivered the business community
one of its most coveted prizes, and business leaders lined up to support
the effort.
Daimler responds: ‘We depend on a reliable and stable political framework.’
At a White House appearance with Mr. Trump in October 2017, Tom Donohue,
the chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, delighted at the
prospect of the tax cuts. “The business community has been waiting a
long time for an administration and the president and a willing Congress
to do what we haven’t done for many decades,” Mr. Donohue said.
Yet by basking in their new riches, companies were drawn that much
closer to a White House that was separating children from their families
at the border and cozying up with dictatorial regimes.
“The Trump tax cut was fool’s gold,” Howard Schultz, the former chief
executive of Starbucks, said Thursday. “People were seduced, and
unfortunately decided for their own benefits and the benefits of their
company, that this was the right thing to do.”
By 2019, it was as if Charlottesville had never happened at all, and a
new business advisory group was formed, this one with the likes of Tim
Cook, the chief executive of Apple; Doug McMillon, the chief executive
of Walmart; and Julie Sweet, the chief executive of Accenture.
At the first meeting, Mr. Cook sat next to Mr. Trump. When the president
asked Mr. Cook to begin speaking with a pat on the wrist, the Apple
chief said, “Thank you, Mr. President. It’s an honor to serve on this
council.”
At the same meeting, Visa’s chief executive, Al Kelly, complimented Mr.
Trump on his “very, very good leadership,” and Ginni Rometty, then the
chief executive of IBM, fawned over the president for his “unwavering
leadership.”
Some of those same chief executives had previously excoriated Mr. Trump
for his behavior. Yet there they were in the White House. It was as if
the worst moments of his presidency were a bad dream.
“The past four years have presented difficult challenges to C.E.O.s who
must balance helping advance policies to move the country forward, while
speaking strongly on issues that cut against their core beliefs,” said
Rich Lesser, chief executive of the Boston Consulting Group, who was
part of one of the first advisory councils.
Ultimately, however, the executives were reduced to the same sort of
mental gymnastics and bouts of understatement that the president’s
socially liberal supporters have had to perform in recent years,
extolling Mr. Trump’s economic policies at opportune moments, while
ignoring his fundamental flaws.
The grand bargain was well articulated last year by Stephen Ross, the
billionaire developer of Hudson Yards and the owner of the Miami
Dolphins, who supported Mr. Trump. “I think he’s been a little
divisive,” Mr. Ross said in an interview then. “But I think there are a
lot of great business policies he’s enacted that have been fantastic and
nobody else could have done it but him.”
The pandemic brought a new round of photo ops for the president and top
executives. Here was Mr. McMillon of Walmart with Mr. Trump in the Rose
Garden. There was the president with the Ford Motor Company chairman,
Bill Ford, in a factory in Michigan. And here was Chris Nassetta, the
chief executive of Hilton, with Mr. Trump in the Cabinet Room.
As Mr. Trump lied about his administration’s response to the pandemic
and took efforts to subvert the democratic process, some in big business
stood by his side. Even as the president refused to accept the election
results, Steve Schwarzman, the chief executive of Blackstone and one of
Mr. Trump’s staunchest allies, made remarks saying he understood why
people were concerned about election irregularities. In late November,
he released a statement saying, “the outcome is very certain today and
the country should move on.”
On Wednesday, many chief executives had, once again, had enough. The
National Association of Manufacturers called on Vice President Mike
Pence to consider invoking the 25th Amendment of the Constitution and
remove Mr. Trump from office. Many executives — including Mr. Cook of
Apple, Mr. Dimon of JPMorgan and Mr. Schwarzman — denounced the
violence, lamented the state of the country and called for accountability.
But after four years of much talk but little action, their words rang
hollow.
“When people make political decisions for business reasons,” said Mr.
Walker, “it can have heinous social consequences.”
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