It’s much more than a baseball fight.
As a matter of political symbolism, the decision to pull the All-Star Game from Atlanta is attracting attention in the culture wars. After all, Major League Baseball acted the day after President Biden told ESPN that he would support such a protest against the new voting law in Georgia, and Donald Trump immediately demanded a boycott of baseball.
But here’s a much deeper dynamic at stake: Large parts of business life in America are increasingly at odds with the Republican Party.
For decades, the two were virtually synonymous. The largest U.S. companies have been happy to open their coffers to IDP candidates who support tax cuts, less government spending and reduced regulation.
Republicans from the Country Club were pretty much at the helm – which is good for General Motors and all that – and this was symbolized by John Boehner when he was the House Speaker’s house. In his new memoirs, Boehner admits that his power waned when he could not convince freshmen to compromise on legislation:
“Ronald Reagan said something earlier that if I get 80 or 90 percent of what I want, it’s a win. These guys wanted 100 percent every time. Actually, I think it would not satisfy them because they did not want to. “They really wanted legal victories. They wanted wedge issues and conspiracies and crusades.”
But as the party moved right under Trump, the Democrats moved to the left – and the corporate world began to develop. Some of the changes started earlier when big companies decided that affirmative action and gay rights are good for business. The racial protests and riots that followed the murder of George Floyd also changed their behavior. And especially as Big Tech ventures joined the mix, CEOs became more sensitive to demands for social justice.
COMMANDED USES ESPN TO SLAM GEORGIA VOTING LAW WANTS TO MOVE ALL-STAR GAME
Major employers in Georgia, led by Delta and Coca-Cola, under pressure from civil rights activists, have launched a public relations campaign against the ballot law signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
As the New York Times pointed out: ‘Taking a stand on voting rights legislation pushes companies into a partisan policy and pits Republicans who have proven they want to raise taxes and apply complicated regulations to companies that they politically cross. ‘
And they retaliated. The George House voted to revoke a tax cut on jet fuel that benefited Delta after the airline’s baseball position, just as the legislature killed a tax break in 2018 when Delta broke with the NRA in the aftermath of the Parkland high school shooting .
Now I can not claim that I am shocked that local politicians punish private enterprises that do things they do not like, but it is a particularly raw exercise of power.
In his statement, Trump also urged his supporters to boycott Coke, Delta and a list of other corporations that oppose similar proposals in other states. Marco Rubio supports the boycott and calls the airline and the soft drink company ‘corporate hypocrites.’ It is thus clear that the final covenant between Republicans and their traditional business allies is broken.
Now I can not imagine millions of conservatives going to boycott every company on the list, or even baseball itself. But Trump damaged the NFL with his attacks on the national anthem protests.
If Trump was still in the White House, that would be the main story every hour. But how much media attention should be paid to these statements by a former president? It is certainly more than Barack Obama who supports MLB’s move, given Trump’s enormous influence on the Republican Party.
The move to the game costs Atlanta about $ 100 million in tourism revenue, so it’s not a slap on the wrist.
At the same time, some of what Biden says about the restrictions on voting rights in Georgia go too far. After an initial wave of positive coverage, the Washington Post offered Biden four Pinocchios for claiming that the law mandates that all polling stations close at 5 p.m.
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Deeper reporting has found that while the law in Georgia improves some things, such as an extra Saturday of early voting, it makes the ballot by mail more difficult by requiring identification.
Gone are the days when athletics competitions were an oasis of cultural battles. Sport and politics are now inextricably linked, no matter who the president is. And big companies are more interesting at scoring points with links than we could have imagined a decade ago.