‘Woke’ corporations: Why they’ve switched sides

If you’re a loyal Republican, said Michelle Cottle in The New York Times, “dump your Diet Coke and shut off that episode of NCIS—or whatever ViacomCBS show you may be watching. Cash in your Delta plane tickets, close your Citibank account, flush your Merck meds, and tell your kids not to ship you anything via UPS. And, oh yeah, no patronizing Major League Baseball.” These are the absurd “marching orders” coming from Republican leaders who want to punish dozens of corporations for speaking out against Georgia’s recent “assault on voting rights.” Hearing Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warn CEOs to “stay out of politics” is surreal, said Jonathan Chait in NYMag.com. After torpedoing campaign finance reform and fighting for corporations to be freed to flood unlimited money into political campaigns, McConnell and other conservatives are facing the “sickening realization” that corporate America is taking sides with the enemy.

Conservatives should “boycott companies that hate us,” said Dave Seminara in The Wall Street Journal. Liberals are “bullying” companies into adopting “woke” stances, and as a result “my house is full of leftist brands.” I have clothing from Patagonia, which lectures customers on climate change, and shampoo from Procter & Gamble, which recently aired a polarizing commercial about “a young transgender girl and her lesbian moms.” Coca-Cola and Delta call Georgia’s voting law racist, “implying that those, like me, who support it are bigots.” That’s why I’m boycotting baseball, said John Cooper in Washington Examiner.com. “Ripping” the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta will cost local businesses “upwards of $100 million in lost revenue.” Though I’m a lifelong Atlanta Braves fan, I’m done watching.

If you want to see where this “showdown” is headed, said Michele Norris in WashingtonPost .com, “flip on your TV and watch the ads.”

The all-white families have largely been replaced by Black, brown, Asian, mixed-race, and samesex couples buying cars, laundry detergent, and engagement rings. Corporate America knows the U.S. will be “majority-minority” sometime in the next 30 years and “are protecting their bottom lines” by embracing that diverse, multiracial reality, whereas “much of the Republican agenda is fueled by fear of this future.” If corporations are forced to choose between that future and a party that wants to “time-travel back to the 1950s,” their schism with the GOP will only widen.