Alex Browne in Phenomenal World:
On January 10, 2021, four days after the January 6 attack at the Capitol, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley—four of the six largest banks in the United States—suspended contributions to the Republican Party. The next day, the Chamber of Commerce declared that politicians who had voted against certifying the election would no longer receive its financial support. “The president’s conduct last week was absolutely unacceptable and completely inexcusable,” said Thomas Donahue, the Chamber’s CEO: “By his words and actions, he has undermined our democratic institutions and ideals.” Over 123 Fortune 500 firms—collectively accounting for a quarter of American GDP—eventually did the same.
American capital’s boycott against the Republican Party, signifying new heights of estrangement between organized business and what it saw as a dangerously anti-system conservative movement, lasted less than two months. By March, the Chamber had reversed course. “We do not believe it is appropriate to judge members of Congress solely based on their votes on the electoral certification,” explained Ashlee Rich Stephenson, the Chamber’s senior political strategist. Citi and JPMorgan Chase resumed their donations to the GOP in June, once a bipartisan group of senators emerged to separate infrastructure spending from the administration’s proposals for a tax increase. In the 2022 primaries, Republican members of Congress who refused to certify the 2020 election still faced an average fundraising penalty of $100,000 from Fortune 500 PACs; this penalty dropped in the 2022 general election, and once again in the 2024 primaries. Within two years, organized business’s opposition to the Republican Party had disintegrated.
More here.
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