Companies don’t get credit for bailing on Trump in Capitol attack aftermath

I say it’s about damn time—and long overdue.

Trump has repeatedly placed his personal interest over the country’s interest. Time and again, corporate America stayed on the sidelines. Their support for Trump—financial and political—gave Republicans the cover to continue enabling him. Corporate America’s silence until this moment makes them complicit.

Trump has spent the last four years spewing lies and conspiracy theories, misleading his supporters in the most calculating and craven ways imaginable. His assault on the truth and the democratic norms of the country has been unrelenting. And for what? Did Trump really believe claiming over and over that Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was fraudulent, without any evidence, would force the world’s oldest and greatest democracy to bend to his will?

And by the way, the threat from Trump’s supporters has not disappeared. ABC News reports the FBI recently issued an alert on plans by armed protestors to disrupt Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration, as well as attacks on all 50 state legislatures leading up to Jan. 20.

American companies that have benefitted from Trump’s policies chose to overlook his abhorrent behavior until now. It took an attack on the country’s seat of power, which occurred while Congress was formally approving Biden’s win over Trump, for some of them to finally say enough is enough.

Social media companies Twitter, Facebook, and others have either permanently or temporarily banned Trump from their platforms for his role in inciting the violence; Google, Apple, and Amazon Web Services recently deactivated Parler, a Twitter-alternative app popular with conservatives that has been linked to Wednesday’s attack.

Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and other large banks say they will pause political donations for six months or through next quarter. Other companies, including the hotel chain Marriott and biotech firm Boston Scientific, are pausing donations to any member of Congress who voted against certifying the election results, while several colleges have stripped Trump of honorary degrees, The New York Times reported.

In the sports world, the PGA terminated its agreement to hold its 2022 championship at Trump’s New Jersey golf course because “conducting the PGA Championship at Trump Bedminster would be detrimental to the PGA of America brand,” PGA President Jim Richerson said.

In the coming days, many other companies are likely to re-examine their connections to Trump.

Conservatives decry these moves as assaults on free speech that are part of a national “cancel culture” movement aimed at silencing their voices.

I strongly disagree. Trump has shown himself unfit for office on numerous occasions, from knowingly downplaying the risks of the coronavirus pandemic that has led to more than 374,000 American deaths to encouraging racism, bigotry, and even violence among his followers. Trump has a glaring blind spot for Russia, consistently refusing to condemn the country or its leader, Vladimir Putin, for committing numerous acts of war against the United States, from election interference in 2016, to placing bounties on American troops, to Russia’s recent cyber-attack on the U.S. government.

Now Trump and his supporters want to do the most outrageous thing imaginable, which is burn down American democracy. And we’re supposed to let them?

Trump has repeatedly placed his personal interest over the country’s interest. Time and again, corporate America stayed on the sidelines. Their support for Trump—financial and political—gave Republicans the cover to continue enabling him. Corporate America’s silence until this moment makes them complicit.

It could be argued companies condemning Trump now, with only days left in his presidency, are engaging in crass and transparent attempts to protect their own brands and profits from being dragged down with him. I’m not going that far. What is certain is that customers and employees of those companies will be watching carefully what they do next.

The decisions Americans make in the coming days and weeks about whether to withhold their support of companies and organizations that backed Trump could get really personal.

I have a Home Depot in my town that I visit to buy everything I can’t find at my local hardware store. Should I stop shopping there because its CEO is an unabashed Trump supporter?

The New England Patriots, the NFL football team I have loved since I was a boy, has well-documented friendships between Trump and the three people currently most associated with the team: owner Robert Kraft, head coach Bill Belichick, and former quarterback Tom Brady.

Trump has invited Belichick to the White House to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Should Belichick accept the award, do I stop supporting the Pats for as long as Belichick is the coach? For as long as Kraft is the owner?

The flipside is, of course, also possible. Perhaps companies that stick with Trump may earn the undying loyalty of the 74 million Americans who voted for him in 2020. That’s certainly a calculation to consider in a country as harshly divided as ours.

More likely, though, is public opposition to Trump will harden, particularly if protestors follow through on their threats to disrupt the inauguration or attack state capitols.

Corporations crave stability. Their futures are inexorably intertwined with the success of this ongoing experiment known as American democracy. Maybe it has taken searing images of rioters looting the Capitol building for them to fully understand the danger Trump has posed to the country all along.

Editor’s note: Following publication of this column Monday, Belichick declined to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.