“It just seems like he’s fighting on everything every day,” went the frequent Republican lament when President Donald Trump was in office.
And there were indeed fights on everything, every day: In high school and gym locker rooms; in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and on ESPN; with Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood; with CEOs from Mark Cuban to Bob Iger.
But it wasn’t Trump, of course. We’ve all since learned this. Because if it had been, we wouldn’t still be hearing about pundits and satire sites getting kicked off of platforms for calling out a man on a women’s swim team.
If it had just been Trump all along, cities and states wouldn’t still be boycotted by professional sporting events.
If it had been the mean old Donald, we wouldn’t be deluged daily still by woke corporations, tech censorship, and Hollywood meltdowns.
If it had been all about 45, executives across The Walt Disney Company would not still be caught using theme parks to erase gender, using children’s cartoons to push a “not-at-all secret gay agenda,” and promising war with elected representatives who stand in their way.
The truth is the left-wing’s culture war is relentless. And given their near-complete control of the commanding heights, it might seem we’re hopelessly outgunned.
But they do have a weak point: For decades, Americans have generously carved out privileges, incentives, and exceptions for those companies and institutions that we felt served our people’s and our country’s interests. It’s time to stop.
Republican politicians, however, aren’t used to this kind of fighting. They’d rather cite Ronald Reagan as we slip slowly under corporate rule. That won’t do at all.
It’s time to act. It’s time to fix it.
The Enemy Is In Our Trenches
Far from some kind of hypothetical, or some kind of Trump phenomenon, the culture war is upon us; it rages in every single aspect of liberal society — the home, the church, our businesses, and our government.
While there are hopeful signs of Americans (and even some politicians) waking up, the open enemies of Christian morality, traditional values, the nuclear family, masculine and feminine virtues, and Western Civilization are already in our trenches.
We need to fight; and we can start with their wallets (and a few questions).
Why, you might reasonably ask, does Congress shovel $45 billion into universities every year? Certainly not for the students or taxpayers, who are burdened with debt while these leftwing-activist factories raise tuition year after year. Every time the vote comes up, though, it comes and goes without so much as a peep from the GOP. Next year, they might well have the power to end this.
Why, you might reasonably ask, are red-state public schools permitted to spend taxpayer money on diversity, inclusion, and equity bureaucracies? It’s clear these programs pay large salaries, but how do they benefit children? Parents and the politicians they elect have the power of the purse, and can wield it to put an end to these expensive disasters.
Why, you might reasonably ask, is our long-partisan corporate media shielded from accountability by wild precedents like New York Times v. Sullivan, which found the paper was allowed to print damaging lies about local police leaders just because they were “public figures”? Our political leaders can craft laws to protect the citizenry from libel, while also protecting our First Amendment rights.
Why, you might reasonably ask, are corporations protected by limited liability, while individuals and partnerships are not? When corporate gambles go awry, their executives don’t lose their homes. The little guys, however? The ones who sponsor local sports teams instead of threatening local governments? They do. This is a direct function of decisions Congress has made — and can unmake.
Why, you might reasonably ask, is labor taxed so much higher than capital? Has American finance shouldered a patriotic responsibility to protect the working and middle classes, or has it exported the works of American hands abroad for profit? Well, there’s a disconnect somewhere: In 2020, for example, the S&P 500 went up 16 percent while our GDP went down. Our lawmakers did this; they can do undo it, too.
And why is The Walt Disney Company continuously protected from copyright expirations? The original reasoning was to protect American children’s favorite characters from being used to spread sexual or degenerate messaging. Today, Disney executives outright promise to include this sort of messaging. Congress need not extend these special protections when Mickey Mouse’s copyright comes back up in 2024.
The above is just one of many sweetheart deals that have been cut for Disney. Another in the news is their ability to avoid local zoning ordinances for their Florida theme parks. It’s a perk not given to other local companies that was extended to Disney because Walt himself promised to build a childhood wonderland in swampland, bringing millions of jobs and tourists to a sleepy part of central-southern Florida.
He did that, but that was then. Today, the patriotic dreamer who founded Disney is long gone. In the years since, his corporate successors have perverted those dreams, and turned on the very Floridians they operate amongst, demanding the state’s youngest children be instructed on sex, transgenderism, and a host of other deeply inappropriate subjects. Why should the old zoning deal continue? Gov. Ron DeSantis asked that very question this week.
The Attack Of The Capitulators
His suggestion, however, came under immediate attack from the outgoing Republican governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, who told CNN that Florida’s attempt to protect its children was “absurd,” and that by standing against a multinational corporation, DeSantis was abusing his authority.
“DeSantis,” he told CNN, “is always talking about he was not demanding that businesses do things, but he was telling the cruise lines what they had to do, he was telling local schools.”
It’s a common refrain we’ve heard from weak-kneed Republican governors across the country, from Arkansas’ Asa Hutchinson to Utah’s Spencer Cox to Hogan: “We,” they declare, “are unwilling to protect our most vulnerable citizens from Big Business.”
In addition to “fairness” and “commission[s] of experts,” they’ll even cite Ronald Reagan (who is conveniently unavailable to refute the slander) to support their positions.
To these Republicans, defending travel industry passengers and employees from deeply intrusive federal demands isn’t conservative. To these Republicans, protecting young children from mask mandates, novel medical experiments, and indoctrination is somehow “overreach.”
“I go back to William Buckley,” Hutchinson infamously claimed in defense of corporate-backed child-genital mutilation, “I go back to Ronald Reagan, the principles of our party, which believes in a limited role of government.”
Far from going back to anything, these stooges slouch forward toward oligarchy.
It’s not surprising, though. Republicans aren’t used to fighting back against corporations, and most don’t have the talking points — or stomach — for it. They’d rather do their corporate friends favors.
The American people, however, don’t get much for these deals; and we’re tired of it. And once we realize how our situation can be undone, we’ll know where to look for action.
But it won’t be to those who’d sell our self-rule and our culture out in the name of principles they’re unwilling to defend. There’s no future for corporate simps.
