Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are going after big businesses for being ‘uniformly Democrat’ and their CEOs for putting their ‘radical left’ perspectives on full display.
‘If you look at the CEOs of the Fortune 100, there are very, very few who you could even plausibly characterize as right of center,’ Cruz, a GOP senator from Texas, told The Hill.
‘They are almost uniformly Democrat. And they have made the decision to enlist their companies in the political agenda of today’s Democratic Party, which is controlled right now by the radical left.’
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is also ramping up his criticism of big business.
‘For the past several years, I have been making the case that far too many American companies were prioritizing short-term financial windfalls at the expense of America’s families, communities and national security,’ Rubio wrote in a statement to The Hill.
‘More and more people are coming around to that viewpoint, both in the Republican Party and around the country,’ he continued.
Senators Ted Cruz (left) and Marco Rubio (right) are going after big business for being ‘uniformly Democrat’ and ‘prioritizing short-term financial windfalls at the expense of America’
Both Cruz and Rubio ran in the 2016 Republican presidential primary where they were bested by Donald Trump.
Historically, the GOP is very pro-big business and capitalism.
In an April 25 New York Post op-ed, Rubio argued it was time for a ‘rebuilding and rebalancing’ of the relationship between corporations and the national interest.
Several big businesses and CEOs decided to stop or halt donations to Republicans after the January 6 Capitol attacks – especially stopping funds going towards those lawmakers who officially objected to the presidential election results directly after the attack.
Some of those who announced they were stopping PAC or individual donations, whether temporarily or indefinitely, after the pro-Trump riot includes Facebook, Microsoft, Ford Motor Co., Marriott International, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, among others.
Recently Cruz said he would stop accepting donations from corporate political action committees in condemnation of the reaction from corporations over Georgia’s new voting law – including the MLB moving its All Star game from the state due to pressure from advertisers.
‘I don’t intend to take even a single penny from them,’ Cruz said, adding he has no caveats and urging his Republican colleagues to follow suit.
‘I will commend the left,’ Cruz said. ‘They play this game deadly seriously.
‘About a decade ago they realized there is enormous power in big business — and that if they could weaponize corporate America, it would be a powerful tool for enforcing their agenda. And we are seeing that more and more and more.’
Cruz also chalks the divide between the GOP and corporations up to ‘culture wars’.
‘Look, I don’t want to boycott baseball. I like watching the Astros,’ he said of the Texas Major League Baseball team. ‘So I am just pissed off that giant companies that should be focused on providing goods or services … are instead playing politics.’
‘Woke politics trumps doing their jobs,’ Cruz added.
In an attempt to explain the friction between conservatives and big business, Rubio said: ‘Part of that is because these corporations, their CEOs and their boards seem eager to weigh in on behalf of every woke, left-wing social priority.’
‘The other part,’ he continued, ‘is that people understand that many of these companies are more interested in gaining access to China’s consumers than being part of thriving American communities.’
Despite past allegiance between businesses and the Republican Party, who usually proposes more corporate-friendly tax initiatives and policies, Cruz says the new GOP is ‘fighting for the working man and woman.’
‘I think the most important political change of the last decade has been a socioeconomic inversion,’ Cruz said. ‘Historically the caricature, at least, was that Republicans were the party of the rich and Democrats were the party of the poor. I believe that is precisely opposite to where we are today. Democrats today are the party of rich coastal elites and Republicans are the party of blue-collar workers.’
In both 2016 and 2020, Trump did better with voters earning less than $50,000 per year than the last two Republican presidential nominees. Trump won 44 per cent of the lower-income demographic in 2020 compared to Utah Senator Mitt Romney and late Arizona Senator John McCain each earning 38 per cent the years they ran for president against Barack Obama.
The former president also did significantly better among non-college graduates than college graduates, even beating out Joe Biden in that demographic in the 2020 election.