Eighty-eight American business leaders have written a letter of support for Kamala Harris for president. This development may surprise those that assume that business leaders are likely to lean Republican. But a more in-depth have a look at the signatories and the history of business-government relations shows that while this shouldn’t be a turning point in big business’s relationships with political leaders, it does signal that Republicans still have some work to do by way of their relationships with business.
The list of signatories is much from an inventory of the 88 current Fortune 500 CEOs. About 40 are “former,” reflecting the proven fact that incumbent business leaders have to be cautious about putting themselves too clearly on one side or the opposite of America’s deepening political divide. Others, like former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, come from academia relatively than the business world. While the letter shows that many business leaders support Harris, it doesn’t mean that all the business world is on her side. Donald Trump has his own circle of business leaders on his side, including Elon Musk, Steve Schwarzman, Bill AckmanAnd Marc Andreessen.
Traditional affinities
There have long been political differences amongst business leaders. Financier JP Morgan generally – and generously – supported Republicans throughout his profession. Yet he supported conservative Democrat Grover Cleveland for president in 1884. Standard Oil’s John D. Rockefeller repeatedly donated money to Republicans but nonetheless clashed with Republican trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt, who criticized Rockefeller’s monopoly and initiated measures that led to the breakup of his company.
Many of the signers of Harris’s letters of advice come from the world of technology and entertainment. The ties between Democrats and Hollywood executives return a great distance. Harry and Jack Warner of the Warner Brothers studio strongly supported Franklin Roosevelt within the 1932 presidential election. The brothers attended his 1933 inauguration and repeatedly made movies supporting Roosevelt and his causes. In later years, agent and then-studio head Lew Wasserman befriended Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, effectively creating the pipeline through which Hollywood money flowed to Democratic politicians.
The close ties to Hollywood and the Democrats still exist today. As Hollywood manager – and Harris letter signer – Jeffrey Katzenberg announced the drying up of cash for Joe Biden’s flagging presidential campaign was like a stake throughout the center of the Biden candidacy. Silicon Valley, one other source for most of the letter’s signatories, is a more moderen industry but has long been a Democratic stronghold here too.
A changing landscape
The letter’s signatories are also indicative of the evolution of our economy away from manufacturing and industrial corporations, which Republican regulatory policies have tended to favor. White-collar industries like entertainment, media and technology not only favor many Democratic policies, but additionally have heavily Democratic workforces that beat back against executives who support Republican politicians.
In addition to the external aspects that will have eroded the Republicans’ perceived lead amongst corporate leaders, Republicans also must look inside themselves. Republicans have long been higher for business by way of their political rhetoric. Democrats are and have been routinely anti-corporate. In recent years, nonetheless, we now have seen more anti-business rhetoric from Republicans as well. While Democratic anti-corporate sentiment remains to be more widespread and significant, Republican anti-business rhetoric is eroding a conventional Republican advantage.
Beyond the rhetoric, Democrats have long supported interventionist antitrust policies, while Republicans are more drawn to the theories of Robert Bork, who argued that big shouldn’t be bad so long as consumers profit. In recent years, nonetheless, increasingly Republicans have sided with modern-day trustbusters, similar to Federal Trade Commission head Lina Khan and said they wanted to interrupt up big corporationsespecially within the technology sector.
The final factor concerns personal relationships. While Dwight Eisenhower felt near his “gang,” his golf-playing group of corporate executives, modern executives, especially within the technology and finance worlds, are likely to lean more toward Democratic politicians. They often went to the identical schools, live in the identical upscale cities and suburbs, and have the identical cultural interests. From the angle of many corporate leaders, Democrats may denigrate them, but so long as Republicans denigrate them too, they may as well support the people their children go to highschool with.
The relationship between the key political parties and massive business has long been complex—and it has develop into much more so in our day and age. But the pro-Harris letter shows that Republicans have some work to do in the event that they wish to be seen because the pro-business party in future elections.
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