Woke capitalism strikes again in Georgia

By Jarrett Stepman | The Daily Signal

If the problem of “woke capitalism” wasn’t apparent before, the battle over Georgia’s new election integrity law has drawn it out into the open.

The law, which adds voter ID requirements to absentee voting, extends some early voting, and places some restrictions on activist activities at polling places, has been billed by Democrats and President Joe Biden as Jim Crow 2.0.

Regardless of the merits of the law or the offensive absurdity of comparing it to the actual rampant voter suppression under Jim Crow, it’s clear that opposition to the law is coming almost entirely from the left.

This issue is being used to seek to persuade Americans to support HR 1, a bill before Congress that would effectively amount to the federal takeover of elections.

These are political matters to be decided by the people of Georgia and by members of Congress.

However, in response to the Georgia law, a long list of big corporations have stepped into the debate and condemned the law.

Perhaps most dramatically of all, Major League Baseball on Friday announced that it would move the 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta, costing the state over $100 million and likely many jobs tied to tourism.

The situation is a repeat of what happened in Georgia in 2019, when the state passed a so-called fetal heartbeat bill. Giant corporations and Hollywoodthreatened to move their operations out of the state in response.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., delivered a speech in the Senate blasting threats over the fetal heartbeat bill. First Things magazine published the speech, titling it “The Dictatorship of Woke Capital.”

Whatever we call the phenomenon, it’s clear that it’s only increasing.

As Stephen Soukup, author of the new book “The Dictatorship of Woke Capital: How Political Correctness Captured Big Business,” told me in a recent interview, this corporate behavior stems from long-term changes in their operating models, from “shareholder” to so-called stakeholder capitalism.

That rather opaque distinction has generally meant, in practice, a focus on left-wing social causes.

“When we discuss woke capitalism or woke capital, what we mean is a top-down, anti-democratic movement on the part of some of the biggest and most important names in American business to change the way business functions, to change the definition of capitalism, and to change the very relationship between the citizen and the state permanently,” Soukup said.

Many of the largest corporations in the world have merged their interests with activist investors who intend to shape policy and culture through the immense power these companies can wield.

So, not only do corporations now wade into America’s political debates, they also often operate in concert with one another.

Did MLB move its All-Star Game due to an outcry from players or the people of Georgia? It seems unlikely.

All of the statements from MLB to Atlanta-based Coca-Cola to Delta Air Lines suggest they didn’t even read the Georgia law and just copied and pasted dishonest Democratic talking points in their press statements.

There are no specific critiques, just vague references to supposed voter suppression.

The bigger issue here is not just about the election integrity law, as important as that is.

Instead, it’s the transformation of big business into an activist, aggressive sledge hammer that works on behalf of left-wing causes and threatens the polities of states when they pass laws the left doesn’t like.

It’s happening even as big business turns a hypocritically blind eye to the egregious violation of rights that take place in communist China, a country they are often all too eager to do business with.

If Major League Baseball is deeply concerned about democracy, why is it desperately scrambling to build its presence in a country that doesn’t have free elections at all?

If there’s a silver lining to this growing practice, it’s at least becoming so common and open that it can no longer be ignored.

The question will be how conservatives and Republicans respond to the growing threat. How can Americans who don’t agree with the left’s agenda at least get these corporations to pursue a neutral policy and focus on catering to customers, rather than activists?

As Soukup noted, the best way to do that is to put public pressure on those companies.

“If we think about how this happened, how we got to this position, it’s because activist shareholders began pressuring companies 10, 15, even 20 years ago to do what the activists wanted,” Soukup said. “And as is always the case, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

The rest of us need to be squeaky like the left has been.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, said he was “not wavering” in his support for the state’s new election integrity law, despite the threats from woke capital.

That’s perhaps the most important first step in getting this problem under control. When woke corporate bullies threaten you, stand up to those bullies, call them out on their distortions and hypocrisies, and refuse to bend to their will.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Keith Allison

3 thoughts on “Woke capitalism strikes again in Georgia

  1. An Urgent Job for the Vermont Legislature

    Why is Vermont not introducing ELECTION SAFEGUARDS?
    Why wait to the last minute?

    Update documentation for each legal REGISTERED voter
    PURGE voter lists of dead people and those who moved out of state.

    That is easy to do.
    Just access Social Security records, tax records, US Census records, etc., and compare with voter lists
    Where there is a will, there is a way

    Methods of Voting

    There are 3 methods of voting:

    1) Appear in person
    2) Send absentee mail-in ballots to Town Clerks
    3) Drop mail-in ballots in drop boxes located throughout various states. Typically, those boxes are unsupervised/unmonitored, which means the “chain of custody” is broken, i.e., in violation of election law.

    Town Clerks, etc., receive those ballots, and are required, by law, to verify, USING DOCUMENTS ON FILE FOR EACH REGISTERED VOTER:

    1) Voter has full signature; not just a scribble
    2) Voter has up-to-date voter IDs; not something 20 years old.
    3) Voter met residency requirements; utility bills, local and state tax bills, driver’s license, car registration, tax returns, social security record.
    4) Address must be physical domicile, i.e., not a parking lot, warehouse, business, PO box, etc.
    5) Residency should be at least 6 months.
    6) Voter is dead or alive,
    7) Voter met age requirements,
    8) Voter is a citizen, i.e., born in the US (copy of birth certificate, preferably notarized) or naturalized (copy of citizen papers)

    After checking all those criteria, Town Clerks, etc., mark the voters as having voted, on registered voter lists.
    The total of such markings is called the turnout, which is reported by Town clerks to State election officials.

    Ban out-of-state students to vote in their school state. They should vote in their own state, via an absentee ballot.

    Ban “no-excuse absent” voting. To qualify to vote Absentee: Voters would have to be:

    1) 75 years old or older,
    2) Absent from their precinct,
    3) Observing a religious holiday,
    4) Physical disabled,
    5) Providing constant care for someone with a physical disability, or
    6) Working “for the protection of the health, life, or safety of the public during the entire time the polls are open”

    Ban automatic voter registration, such a “motor-voter”, which would enable un-documented and non-citizens to vote

    Ban ballot drop boxes, which would minimize “ballot box stuffing”

    Ban universal mailing of absentee ballots: Voters should be required to provide identification when they request an absentee ballot application.

    Election officials and official campaign organizations would be allowed to distribute, but various outside groups and nonprofit organizations would be banned from sending absentee ballot applications to voters.

    Increase poll watcher access: No processing of ballots and subsequent counting of ballots, at any time, without adequate poll watcher observation.

    Ban “brand-new” residents from voting in runoff elections.

    Mandate monthly updates to election officials of voters who have died or moved out of state

    Repeal “permanent-early-voting”, which allows a voter to automatically receive a ballot by mail for every election.

    NOTE: Town clerks have stated they cannot check these criteria, because their records lack sufficient documentation.

    NOTE: Mail-in voting takes fraud opportunities to a whole new level, as was proven during the past election.

    Nine election reforms states can implement to prevent mistakes and voter fraud
    http://www.truenorthreports.com/9-election-reforms-states-can-imple

  2. Georgia’s GOP finally woke up

    It realized, if current rules and regulations remained in place, the Dem/Progs would win elections, by hook and crook, if necessary, because the opportunities for VOTER fraud, ballot box stuffing, and COUNTING fraud would be rampant.

    The GOP party would disappear, become irrelevant, as in Vermont.

    The COUNTING takes place in Dem/Prog controlled/staffed counting centers, with friendly city police maintaining “order”, and local Courts helping out with “no standing, etc.” rejections of laws suits.

    An Urgent Job for the New Hampshire Legislature
    https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/state-and-local-election-reforms-are-long-overdue

    The Legislature of New Hampshire became Republican, because the “activist student vote” was absent.
    They likely voted in their own states, as they should.

    NH has a perfect opportunity to immediately revise NH voting laws.
    Strictly regulate the circumstances and methods of COUNTING the votes.
    None of the counting machines should be programmable by insiders and outsiders
    None should be connectable to the internet.
    None should have an insertable electronic card
    Abolish most absentee voting.
    Do not allow out-of-state students to register and vote. They would not be “deprived”, because they can, and should, vote in their own state.

    NOTE: The Legislature of New Hampshire became Republican, because the “activist student vote” was absent. They likely also voted in their own states. After all, every vote counts!

    Example of Counting Fraud in New Hampshire

    Hand recount of the Windham (Rockingham Dist. 7) New Hampshire House race revealed Dominion election counting machines shorted all four Republicans by about 300 votes. Gee, how is this possible?

    This fraud was revealed, because St. Laurent, Democrat, who lost by 24 votes, challenged the count, and got a recount.

    Soli, Republican, recovered the 297 votes falsely taken from him by sneaky Dem/Prog vote counters
    St. Laurent had to give back 99 votes falsely attributed to him by sneaky Dem/Prog vote counters
    As a result, instead of losing by 24 votes, St. Laurent ended up losing by 420 votes!!! Yikes!!

    St. Laurent must not be glad he asked for a recount, because the recount of the votes of the other 3 Republicans showed each of them had been screwed out of 300 votes as well, thanks to Dem/Prog shenanigans.

    The thinking of the Dem/Progs must have been: “Heh, this is a close race. Maybe we can flip it”.

    Which Dem/Progs were holding back votes so they would not be counted in a timely manner? See URL
    https://granitegrok.com/mg_windham/2020/11/recount-in-windham-rock-dist-7-machine-shorted-every-republican-by-about-300-votes

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