How Big Business ended up in the trenches of America’s culture wars

After decades of close and harmonious relations, Big Business and the Republican Party and its most hard-line followers are fighting each other on some of the most sensitive fronts of America’s increasingly bizarre culture wars.

Those involved on the side of corporate America are some of the biggest and best-known brands, from Disney, owners of the world’s most popular entertainment parks, to Budweiser, makers of America’s most popular beer, to BlackRock, the multi-national investment firm which is the world’s largest asset manager.

On the opposite front are right-wing Republicans, including three aspirants to the US presidency, who object to corporate policies best known by their acronyms: ESG and DEI. That stands for Environmental, Social and Governance and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

How willing Republicans are to break with their traditional allies on Wall Street was thrown into sharp focus in March with the adoption of a bill to prevent retirement fund managers from basing decisions on factors like climate change, the “E” in ESG. The US Senate passed the measure with a 50-46 vote.

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One critic, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, saw the bill as evidence that Republicans, once champions of the free market, had become inspired by Soviet economic planners.

“Republican lawmakers are now telling which businesses they can and can’t invest in – and which investment criteria they will be permitted to consider."

The bill prompted President Joe Biden to issue the first veto of his presidency. “I signed this veto because the legislation passed by Congress would put at risk the retirement savings of individuals across the country,” he explained.

The response, from the speaker of the Republican-dominated House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy: “President Biden wants to use your hard-earned money not to grow your savings but to fund a far-left political agenda.”

Winning a battle, as Biden did with his veto, does not mean winning the culture wars that go far beyond investment strategies and cover issues as diverse as abortion, education, voting rights, gun laws, school libraries, immigration, and the LGBT community. As far as ESG investment goes, the dark views of hard-line Republicans were spelt out at a hearing of the House Oversight Committee in May by Steve Marshall, the Alabama attorney general and one of two “expert” witnesses.

“An unelected cabal of global elites,” he told the hearing, “have formed alliances to coordinate together to implement woke climate policy….unelected elites are making policy decisions outside of democratic processes.”

That brought to mind a conspiracy theory dating back to the 1970s according to which a cabal of elites are secretly working on a plan to turn the United Nations into the seat of a world government, taking away US sovereignty and enforcing its rule with a fleet of black helicopters.

In the lexicon of right-wing Republicans, “woke” is a pejorative umbrella term that covers a variety of topics - from climate change and social programmes to support for minorities. “Unelected elites” are the kind of people who converge on Davos once a year to exchange ideas on global problems.

US corporate leaders who incur the displeasure of powerful politicians also count as unelected elites, of course. Such as Disney CEO Bob Chapek who, under pressure from angry employees, criticised Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis for legislation to limit school instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity.

DeSantis retaliated by cutting tax and other privileges Disney had enjoyed since 1967. Chapek’s successor as CEO, Bob Iger, hit back by cancelling a $2 billion expansion project around Orlando that would have resulted in 2,000 new jobs.

Another example of how carefully an American company must tread in the culture wars – often discussed with more passion on social media as real wars, i.e. Ukraine – was provided by Bud Light, the country’s most popular beer.

Its drinkers are mostly men and its market share is highest in conservative parts of the country, where diversity is not a major concern and there is little or no sympathy for people who change their gender. Despite a stable consumer base, Bud Light’s sales have been falling steadily across the country.

To stop the decline, caused by greater demand for craft beers, Anheuser Busch, Bud’s brewer, attempted to attract a wider and more diverse range of consumers, including women.

To achieve that goal, the woman in charge of Bud Light’s marketing, Alissa Heinerscheid, launched a promotion that featured a transgender influencer, Dylan Mulvaney. To mark the anniversary of her transition from man to woman, she was given a special gift -- a Bud Light can adorned with her picture.

Mulvaney displayed it proudly on TikTok, where she has almost 11 million followers, and Instagram, where she has 1.8 million. It was a personalised once-only can but conservative social media commenters gave the impression that the can was mass-produced and available in all stores.

That prompted furious social media criticism and so much rage that the country singer Kid Rock produced a video of him shooting Bud Light cans with a submachine gun.

The beer episode illuminates the passion aroused by subjects anathema to the political right but it is no more than a sideshow to the wider issue of the cooling relations between corporate America and the Republican Party in its present configuration.

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There is no unanimity of views of what soured relations between Big Business and the Republican Party but Larry Fink, the hugely successful CEO of BlackRock often comes up in discussions of the estrangement.

In 2020 and 2021, Fink sent letters to dozens of influential CEOs arguing that the financial industry must act against climate change. The letters were effective: they sparked a wave of climate-conscious investing as well as intense lobbying against the idea from oil and other fossil-fuel companies.

At the latest meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, Fink deplored harsh right-wing attacks on him and his strategy proposals. “The narrative is ugly,” he told the meeting. “The narrative has created this huge polarisation…They are trying to demonise the issues.”

Elon Musk, the eccentric billionaire whose mass production of electric cars has been good for the environment, also attended the Davos meeting but had a different take on ESG. “The S in ESG stands for Satanic,” he said in a tweet.

No end is in sight for the controversy. ESG and DEI are certain to be part of the debates in the run-up to the 2024 US presidential elections.

Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.

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