Friends, former Vice-President Dick Cheney, who not so long ago lefties compared to Darth Vader, has turned his back on the Republican Party's nominee for president, Donald Trump, and endorsed Kamala Harris! Oh my! Of course, Dick Cheney is the father of Liz Cheney, Trump hater extraordinaire, so this is not a complete shock. Still, the realignment of establishment "conservative" forces in opposition to Trump has been impressive to behold. It's January 6th that these nutjobs incessantly cite as disqualifying DJT from ever again seeking public office, but let's face it: if it wasn't the Capitol "insurrection", it would be something else. If you get your news from you-know-where, there's no shortage of reasons to clutch your pearls and run for cover whenever Orange Man Bad appears.
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/07/nx-s1-5104718/dick-cheney-voting-kamala-harris-trump-election
Speaking of which, many business tycoons are endorsing Harris as well, although this isn't the big story that some are making it out to be. Much of the corporate world has been in the Democratic camp for, well, ever. The Democrats were never the champions of the little guy, as they claimed. They always cultivated and received corporate backing. Having said that, it will be interesting to see how many CEOs and corporate types support Harris this year, and how many, like Musk, drift right. Above all, corporate America wants to back the winner, for very sensible reasons, and, given how close this race is, I fully expect most corporations to sit on the fence, or to play both sides of it. What's your take?
Dr. Waddy from Jack: In their individual rights, both Cheney's rejection and Dubbya's avoidance of endorsement may have little effect. But if they herald a suicidal impulse on the part of Rinos and semiRinos to go down with their colors unstruck then it could be ominous. What the hell can they be thinking? They'll gain no favor from the antiamerican left; only lip curling contempt.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: If the business of America is business, then the business of business is, necessarily, business. They will, I think, side with those their business sense tells them will win. But they have never had to reckon with a finally triumphant left and they would find it has no respect and no gratitude. Madame DeFarge knits patiently and the tumbrels are prepared and ready. My guess is that AOC has already identified the first of her prospective dachas on the Hudson (far from the madding crowd of course).
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: But that corporate America may, as you suggest, cannily sit on the fence, is quite plausible. For successful businessmen, their business sense may be as sophisticated as to play both sides with skill. Those for whom the bottom line is critical must be pragmatic and the economic benefits of thriving business, which is never free of peril, are manifest for America. But they must take great care not to afford the antiamerican left as much deference and support as to commend that left to the public. If they do not they nonetheless risk ALL. They do not risk extirpation from common sense America should their counterintuitive succor of anarchic radicals fail to save that left but should the radicals triumph they would hasten to wreak vindictive mayhem on any who supported condemned America. That alone -intimidation - might cause corporate America to hazard a slight lean to the left.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy fromk Jack: Your view that the dem party has never been the champion of the little guy and that it always maintained support for and from corporate America is contrary to most of what I have understood about FDR but coming from you I know it to be well considered. Perhaps it depends on how far you go back; after all, at one time the Democrat party even countenanced slavery.
ReplyDeleteIt was a widespread popular perception that Hoover, the successor to 'the business of America is business" herald Coolidge, heartlessly ignored the terrible, terrible ( it was almost beyond belief) conditions obtaining in so much of blue collar America in the Depression and that FDR took up their cause. "At least he did something!" FDR was castigated by some as a "traitor" to his well to do class but when greatly increased wartime industrial production became necessary he garnered their cooperation.
But an unshakeable conviction that the dems were for the little guy and the GOP was only for the "haves" had been, I think, firmly esconsed especially among labor union members and it persists in reduced but still considerable influence to this day.
I remember when then Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny's planned visit to the UK was blasted by some UK union members: " All Podgorny knows is how to oppress workers" was their cry. It was that obvious even to the UK's sometimes quite leftist unions.
Would that the antiamerican incipiently totalitarian American left captured Dem party's disdain for blue collar America were as obvious today. That left sees blue collar America as a colony of bruitish worker ants to be unapologetically courted every two years and then shunted aside. That left is fundamentally devoted to taking from the by definition undeserving productive "haves"(eg. blue collar workers) and giving to the deserving unproductive "have nots", among whom it makes no distinction touching the truly needy and the willfully parasitic who choose to live negative lifestyles.
Goldwater, Reagan, Trump and JD; backward rural types" clinging to their guns and religion", Hillary's "deplorables" , resentful older white males, women exceeding in number the man haters, who see something worth preserving in some traditional values, the children of blue collar America whose fathers would have disowned them had they admitted that they had been "woke" to the reality that the dem party had "left them": all these factors and more , together with the Dem party's now open embrace of America hating radicals have worked to gainsay and erode the automatic deference once paid the dems.
This election will provide a telling test of how much support the Dem party's elite radicalization has cost it.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I should have added to the list of factors which work against the Dem party's betrayal of blue collar America the most important: the overall Conservative movement itself in all its manifestations.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: A related concept which may play a role in this: the often asserted admonition that business must "give back" to the community. Unless it receives direct taxpayer aid business owes the public nothing beyond competence and honesty. It more than pays America back by affording us the truly miraculous standard of living we enjoy.
ReplyDeleteMany businesses do charitable work out of good intent. But when they are intimidated into supporting politics counterintuitive and even inimical to them, that is counterproductive and breeds cynicism and corruption. A good example: the ever present threat of boycott by powerful civil rights organizations.
Jack, I agree that Dick Cheney's whining won't avail him or Harris much, but you do have to wonder whether President Trump could hold together a Republican caucus in either the Senate or the House, some of which would undoubtedly be made up of RINOs...
ReplyDeleteOh, I think you're right, Jack: many corporate types might send their checks dutifully to the DNC purely out of fear of what will happen to them if they don't. Musk is a test case. If they can take him down, then no corporate bigwig would be safe.
Jack, if the world of advertising is any indication (and it is), tons of corporations feel they can profit by elaborately displaying their wokeness, and, on the flip side, they clearly expect that there will be no downside to doing so. I find it quite disheartening and off-putting.
For the record, FDR may have been mildly socialistic, but he got significant support from corporate America, no doubt in part because mild socialism sounded a heck of a lot better than the full-on variety. It sure would be interesting to know how FDR and his allies funded their campaigns...
Dr. Waddy from Jack: My guess would be that many big corporations see some measured risk in open support for wokeism but may think it worth running. sometimes. Look what happened to Anheuser-Busch over Bud Light.
ReplyDeleteSome historians think that FDR saved free enterprise in America. The Depression was really bad but I think the highest rate of unemployment was 25%. That's appalling but was it enough for revolution?
Jack, we can only speculate on how the Depression might have progressed, and how WWII might have progressed, for that matter, if FDR hadn't been around to work his magic. I suspect a giant power grab by the Feds was coming sooner or later. I mean, the U.S. was hardly exceptional in expanding centralized power...
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