The top executives of some of the largest corporations on the planet released a statement on Wednesday saying they support “democracy.”
If that sounds bland and terribly nonspecific, you get the gist of the statement, which was the product of a summit of more than 100 CEOs and executives. The summit was convened in response to passage of Georgia’s election-integrity law and similar legislation being considered in other states.
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The collective corporate statement was released in the form of an ad, which appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.
Here’s what it said:
A government of the people, by the people. A beautifully American ideal, but a reality denied to many for much of this nation’s history. As Americans, we know that in our democracy we should not expect to agree on everything. However, regardless of our political affiliations, we believe the very foundation of our political process rests upon the ability of each of us to cast our ballots for the candidates of our choice.
For American democracy to work, we must ensure the right to vote for all of us. We should all feel a responsibility to defend the right to vote and to oppose any discriminatory legislation or measures that restrict or prevent any eligible voter from having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot.
Voting is the lifeblood of democracy, and we call upon all Americans to join us in taking a nonpartisan stand for this most basic and fundamental right of all Americans.
This is so generic it makes one wonder what the point of the ad was. The Georgia election-integrity law isn’t mentioned at all, nor are any other specific laws.
A list of more than 100 corporate signatories that appeared in the ad can be found at the bottom of this article. It includes Apple, the Ford Motor Co., PayPal, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Under Armor, Sweetgreen, and American Express, among many others.
So, unless you don’t use the internet, drive a car, use large banking institutions, wear clothes, eat food you didn’t grow yourself, or pretty much function at all in modern life, you are almost certain to find companies you interact with on the list.
And, of course, The New York Times did its best to shame the companies that didn’t sign the statement.
Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines, two of the companies that were most public and vocal about the Georgia voting law, were not on the list of the statement’s signatories.
What’s to be made of their collective statement?
One wonders, if the only truly animating “nonpartisan” issue these corporate titans are standing for is democracy, why do we see no similar collective statements in response to the autocratic and deeply anti-democratic policies of communist China, for instance?
“There is overwhelming support in corporate America for this principle of voting rights,” Kenneth Chenault, the former chief executive of American Express Co., said in the days before the meeting. “The right to vote is fundamental to America. It is not a partisan issue.”
Isn’t the right to vote fundamental in other countries, too?
Again, why was there no dramatic corporate summit to address the end of democracy when China was squeezing the life out of the last vestiges of free government in Hong Kong?
This is corporate posturing, little more than virtue signaling that they are all aboard the cause of the woke, social justice left.
It isn’t about “democracy” at all. It’s a typical corporate-speak way of demonstrating that they are committed to the cultural left and the policy priorities of the Democratic Party.
Though the product of this confab ended up being little more than insipid, nonspecific mush, the implications of this turn in corporate behavior should worry Americans.
Are these companies now going to constantly collaborate to bully and threaten states and elected officials who don’t pursue the policy agenda of the activist left?
Not only that, in spite of this corporate insistence on “democracy,” threatening states that pass laws through their democratically elected officials seems quite anti-democratic.
Such a turn further erodes public trust in private corporate institutions and makes them very much the opposite of “nonpartisan.” That only adds fuel to the fire of our current civic discord.
These trends are disturbing, but at least they are revealing. The rise of woke corporatism can no longer be ignored.
Accenture
AIG
Airbnb
Alphabet
Amazon
American Airlines
American Express
Apple
Bain & Company
Bank of America
Berkshire Partners
Best Buy
Biogen
BlackRock
BMC Software
Boston Consulting Group
Broadridge Financial Solutions
Cambridge Associates
Cisco
Civic Entertainment Group
Climb Credit
CODAworx
Cowboy Ventures
Creative Artists Agency
Dell Technologies
Deloitte
Discover Financial Services
Dropbox
Eaton
Emerson Collective
Estee Lauder
Eventbrite
EY
Ferrara
FirstMark Capital
Ford Motor Co.
General Catalyst
General Motors
Goldman Sachs
Harry’s
Hess
IBM
Insight Partners Leadership
Instacart
Intelligentsia Coffee
Johnson & Johnson
Jazz Lincoln Center
JetBlue
Khosla Ventures
Levi Strauss & Co.
Live Nation Entertainment
Loop Capital Markets
Lyft
M&T Bank
MasterCard
McKinsey & Company
Merck
Microsoft
Mondelez International
Netflix
Newell Brands
Nordstrom
Otherwise Incorporated
Paper Source
PayPal
Peloton
Plaid
Predxion Bio
PwC
REI Co-op
Richer Poorer
Salesforce
ServiceNow
Seventh Generation
Slow Ventures
Smith & Company
Sodexo USA
SodexoMAGIC
Sonos
Sound Ventures
Spark Capital
Square
Starbucks
Steelcase
SurveyMonkey
Sweetgreen
Synchrony
T. Rowe Price
Target
Tory Burch
Tripadvisor
Twilio
Under Armour
United Airlines
United Talent Agency
Vanguard
ViacomCBS
VMware
Warburg Pincus
Warby Parker
Wells Fargo
Zendesk
Zola
This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal.
