The shameful silence of America’s CEOs

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Dimon’s reluctance to criticize Trump is particularly curious given Dimon’s public laments about widening inequality, the explosion of student debt, America’s growing racial divide, the failure of innercity schools and the expenditure of “trillions of dollars on wars.”

One obvious explanation is found in the money rolling in from the GOP’s new tax law and Trump’s frenzy of deregulation. Profits have soared at JPMorgan and at other big banks and corporations. Compensation for Dimon and other CEOs has exploded.

Never underestimate the power of a fat compensation package to buy up scruples. From the perspective of Dimon and other CEOs, what’s not to like about Trump and the GOP?

As it turns out, plenty. As the Republican Party moves toward Trump’s looniness — his xenophobia, isolationism, attacks on the press and on truth, conflicts of interest, anti-Muslim and racist provocations, climate-change denials, proposed cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act, and more — Dimon and his ilk could come out big losers.

Let them try to sustain corporate profits as America slides toward authoritarianism. Let them try to maintain comfortable lifestyles as America descends into angry populist tribalism.

I’m old enough to recall a time when CEOs were thought of as “corporate statesman” with duties to the nation. As one prominent executive told Time magazine in the 1950s, Americans “regard business management as a stewardship,” acting “for the benefit of all the people.”

Democracy is fragile. Two weeks ago, Hungary’s far-right governing party, Fidesz, gained a huge victory in national elections, further tightening Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s grip on power, and signaling an end to Hungary’s independent press and a deepening threat to its democracy.

If the leaders of American business remain silent about what Trump is doing to American democracy, they will be complicit in its demise.