'Acting out of fear': How CEOs and media execs are 'acquiescing to Trump in advance'

After President-elect Donald Trump won the United States' 2024 presidential race and enjoyed a narrow victory over Vice-President Kamala Harris, some CEOs who had been critical of Trump in the past reached out to him — including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

But some of Trump's more vehement critics — a combination of Democrats and Never Trump conservatives — have continued to warn that his return to the White House poses a dire threat to U.S. democracy.

In an article published on December 22, The Guardian's David Smith describes what Trump critics, both left and right, are calling "The Great Capitulation."

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"Tech chief executives, media organizations and foreign leaders are seeking the president-elect's favor 'through donations, self-censorship and appeasement," Smith explains. "Analysts say the surrender is driven by a combination of greed, fear of Trump's unfettered power and a belief that resistance is futile."

One of those critics is Never Trump conservative Tara Setmayer, a former GOP strategist and a frequent guest on MSNBC.

Setmayer told The Guardian, "Part of the shock of the Trump win is how quickly and how many people in various areas, from the media to politicians, are acquiescing in advance. People are resigning themselves to self-preservation over the good of maintaining a free and fair democracy and resisting Trump."

Bezos, Smith notes, went from criticizing Trump in the past to saying he is "optimistic" about Trump's second term — and the Amazon CEO, who owns the Washington Post, "killed" an endorsement of Harris that the Post's editorial board wanted to publish before the election.

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Setmayer warns that efforts to appease Trump will not make him any less dangerous.

The Never Trumper told The Guardian, "The way some in the mainstream media have already decided that acquiescence is their way of self-preservation not only is naive but dangerous because without that, we don't have an informed citizenry. It's supposed to be without fear or favor, and media is acting out of fear. And by way of acting out of fear, they are giving Trump the favor that he wants."

Former GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, a Never Trump conservative who worked closely with former President George W. Bush and the late Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) in the past, hasn't toned down his criticism of Trump since the election. And he warns that Trump's threats to use the federal government against his political foes must be taken seriously.

Schmidt told The Guardian, "He's entering office as the most powerful president in American history. He is an American Caesar, unrestrained. Trump has made a threat and said: I'm coming after people. And he's appointed people that will do what he wants without him having to tell them to do it."

The Bulwark's Bill Kristol, another prominent Never Trumper, is also sounding the alarm about "capitulation" to Trump.

Kristol told The Guardian, "He's not a theoretical authoritarian or ideological dictator, though he has elements of that. But he's like a cunning bully and mob boss, and the system can only resist for so long. The guardrails are good, but they need people to uphold them. This is true of the political guardrails — Congress, the political parties, the courts — but it's also true of the broader societal guardrails: the private sector, the media. And there, I would say I'm struck by the apparent speed of the capitulation.”