Thursday, March 28

Abortion in the US | Culture wars escalate tension between Republicans and big business


“The market it is rational and the Government, stupid“. The maxim is from Dick Armey, one of the leaders of the “republican revolution” of Newt Gingrich with which in 1994 the conservatives of USA They regained control of both houses of Congress after 40 years of drought. Summarize the philosophy that for decades has guided the Republican Party: reduce the role of government and raise the standards of free market to dogma of faith. She’s too old for training today.

Although the relationship between conservative political power and the corporate world in the US has been gradually tensing for years, now the tensions have exploded. With the Republicans determined to put the culture wars at the center of the agenda for the November Legislative and the 2024 presidentialand with the conservative-majority Supreme Court poised to overturn five decades of constitutional protection for abortion, the standoff intensifies.

Everything is ‘woke’

The Republicans, who allowed donald trump leave as one of the greatest legacies of his presidency the generous tax cut for large companies that large donors demanded of him, they have jumped on the wave of anti-corporate populism. They take out the heavy artillery against companies that, in response to market forces and social developments, in search of younger employees and consumers who tend to be more progressive, take political positions contrary to those of the conservatives. They revile them as corporations ‘woke up‘, the concept that was born to identify the greatest awareness of social or racial injustices but what has been demonizednot only but especially by the conservatives, who also apply it from the CIA to the Army.

A group that spent years defending that companies had rights equal to those of people because it is what was good for them political donations and managed to get the Supreme Court to recognize them in the controversial sentence Citizens United now denies that they can exercise some of these rights, such as the freedom of expression. And the Republican bid for limited government has given way to the use of political power against corporations, even if those donations are at stake.

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Punishment to Disney

There is no greater exponent of this new era of open hostilities than the decision recently adopted by the Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantisagainst Disney after the mouse house criticized and promised to fight the controversy parental rights law in educationwhich critics have dubbed for its clear content against the LGBT community and rights as “don’t say gay“.

With the help of the conservative legislature DeSantis, who has clear presidential ambitions and is an exponent of the authoritarian drift of the Republican Party since the Trump era, has removed Disney’s status as “independent tax district” which he had since 1967 in the state, where Disney World operates and employs 80,000 people.

The future of that decision, which would not come into effect until the summer of next year, remains to be seen. By revoking that special tax status for which Disney controls and also pays for municipal functions such as the fire service or waste treatment in an area of ​​more than 100 square kilometers, two counties would have to bear the cost of those services, in addition to the Disney debt. The tax hike for local citizens it would be unavoidable. Only those of property are estimated to increase between 20 and 25%.

The step against Disney, in any case, is given. Also from the federal Congress, 17 Republicans have threatened the company with not extending the rights of copyright of Mickey Mouse beyond 2024 and ensure that “Disney has capitulated to far-left activists via hypocritical corporate actions and woke upAnd the warning that conservatives are launching at companies was summed up by Laura Ingraham, one of the stars of FoxNews: “If you don’t keep at bay Everything will be on the table.”

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Rising showdown

The duel is not new but the determination of a radicalized Republican Party . In 2015, for example, former Vice President Mike Pence, then Governor of Indiana, kickback in a “religious freedom” law that would have legalized discrimination against the LGBT community after opposition from companies like Salesforce, Apple, Eli Lilly and even the Chamber of Commerce called the rule “entirely unnecessary.”

The clashes continued as conservative states have advanced regressive legislation. In 2017, for example, there were business boycotts of North Carolina over a law against the transgender community. In 2021, the Baseball League took the Atlanta All Star to protest in Georgia against one of the first regulations with which Republicans throughout the country are restricting voting rights and which they denounced in a letter about 200 large companieswho remembered that “voting is the backbone of democracy“.

The republicans increasingly respond to corporations emboldened. To the baseball league, for example, the threatened by removing one antitrust exception that allows it to function as a sports organization and not as a business, and to Delta, which also protested the Georgia law, by leaving it without a tax exemption for fuel (a threat they had already made when the airline broke with the NRA over the Parkland shooting).

abortion

The draconian abortion laws that have seen the light in republican states have also had a corporate response. 180 companies they signed a letter denouncing them as “bad for businessAnd some went further. Citigroup, Yelp, Apple, Amazon, Bumble or Salesforceamong others, have announced that will cover travel expenses for employees who have to travel outside the states where they work to terminate their pregnancies. Uber and Lyft assume costs for women who use the services to go to abortion clinics and have promised take care of the legal costs of drivers who are sued under Texas and Oklahoma law for carrying women.

The leak this week of the apparent decision of the Supreme Court to repeal the rulings that since 1973 have constitutionally protected the right to abortion, which will have a harsh impact, has reinforced the position of some companies, such as Levi’s, and has already been denounced by others. Many large corporations who have raised their voices against causes such as the protests of Black Lives Matter or legislative attacks against voting rights or the LGBT community, however, for now they have opted for the silence Hello caution until there is a final judgment. But experts and observers believe inevitable that they will have to speak up and act.

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Related news

Republicans, despite having seen how some companies after the assault on the Capitol cut off donations politicians who have continued to question the legality of the 2020 election results that Trump lost, do not back down. This very Wednesday, Senator blond frame introduced legislation proposing eliminate tax breaks to those that cover expenses related to medical processes of gender transition or with trips from states where the interruption of pregnancy is prohibited to others where it is possible, something that he defined as “abortion tourism“.

Our tax code should be pro-family and promote a culture of life,” Rubio said. “Instead, too often our corporations find loopholes to subsidize the murder of unborn children or lurid ‘medical’ treatment of minors. My law will make sure that doesn’t happen.” In the current Congress you don’t have no option to be approved.




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