This is the ninth in a series illustrating how Trump’s MAGA movement is the new American fascism. We use a template laid out in an article published in 2003 by historian Lawrence Britt, which analyzed seven fascist regimes and the common threads linking them. You can read last week’s blog here.
Week IX: Protection of Corporate Power.
“The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.”
And so it went during the “reign” of Trump. The article referenced in the image at the top of this article was published by Public Citizen, which reported:
“Massive conflicts of interest are practically a job requirement for service in the Trump administration. A shipping heiress runs the Department of Transportation. An oil lobbyist runs the Interior Department. A coal lobbyist runs the Environmental Protection Agency. A pharmaceutical executive runs the Department of Health and Human Services. An investment banker runs the Treasury Department. The Defense Department has been led by a who’s who of executives from the largest defense contractors.”
This led to corporations aligning themselves with Trump, likely believing he would benefit “Corporate America” given his penchant to put profits over ethics. And they were right: the Trump Administration rewarded corporations and their affluent shareholders with substantial tax cuts in 2017. The GOP’s tax code overhaul notably slashed the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, and many companies ended up paying even lower effective tax rates due to generous deductions. As a result, the median effective tax rate for S&P 500 companies plummeted from 31.2% in 2017 to a mere 20% in 2018. Bloomberg reported that in the quarter following the law’s implementation, S&P 500 firms saved a staggering $12.8 billion in taxes. What followed was more proof that “trickle down economics” is indeed a fallacy: instead of reinvesting these savings into business expansion and job creation, companies predominantly funneled their tax windfalls into share buybacks, enriching shareholders and CEOs.
Following the events of January 6, 2020, there was a (short-lived) show of corporate conscience. Company after company announced a change in their political giving strategies, including halting donations to candidates who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election. That was then. This is now. As The New York Times pointed out,
“Hundreds of business and trade association PACs contributed over $108 million to campaigns and committees linked to members of Congress who insisted that the election had been stolen from Trump, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data from Jan. 6, 2021 through September by Open Secrets, a campaign finance research nonprofit. ‘Companies pledged to pull back, but we have not seen that play out,’ Open Secrets’ investigations manager, Anna Massoglia, told DealBook.”
Could it be that Trump’s plan to reduce corporate tax levels to just 15% is turning heads in boardrooms across America? What’s a little blood on the streets when the share buy-backs are so lucrative? Corporate CEOs like
at J.P. Morgan Chase are now openly talking up Trump. Didn’t have a chance to jet to Davos to mingle with the uber-rich? Read what some of them said here. Or just take a look at this:
For more than a century, there has been a symbiotic relationship between authoritarian governments and Big Business, from the fascists of the 1930s to more recent iterations of right-wing populist autocrats. These strongmen have found willing allies among industrialists who view their ascension to power as advantageous to their financial interests. They share a thirst for wealth and power—and animosity towards left-wing labor unions, often at the expense of human rights considerations. This is why Trump is catnip for much of corporate America.
Next week, a look at the other side of the coin: Labor Power Suppressed.
