• Subscriptions
    • Log in
    Ad-Free Login - Go Ad-Free & Join The Movement
    The fight for Democracy hasn’t ended. Join Raw Story Investigates for $1. Support honest journalism.
    The fight for Democracy hasn’t ended. Join Raw Story Investigates for $1. Support honest journalism.Click to enable push notifications.
    Listen Now: The New Raw Story PodcastUS NEWSOpinionvideoget the newsletter
    AD-FREE LOGIN
    Ad-Free Login - Go Ad-Free & Join The Movement
    The fight for Democracy hasn’t ended. Join Raw Story Investigates for $1. Support honest journalism.
    The fight for Democracy hasn’t ended. Join Raw Story Investigates for $1. Support honest journalism.Click to enable push notifications.
    • Home
    • New: Shop to Support Independent Journalism
    • We Have Issues
    • Trump
    • U.S. News
    • Video
    • Ad-Free Login
    Tired of ads? Want to support our progressive journalism? Click to learn more.
    JOIN FOR $1

    It's not just Republicans in Congress who share the blame for the failed Trump insurrection

    Phil Mattera, DC Report @ Raw Story
    January 08, 2021

    Thanks for your support!

    This article was paid for by reader donations to Raw Story Investigates.

    Trump supporters breach the Capitol. (Screen grab via CBS New York)
    Trump supporters breach the Capitol. (Screen grab via CBS New York)

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

    Phil Mattera, DC Report @ Raw Story

    Republican members of Congress who abetted the plot to overturn the election will go down in infamy along with the disgraced 45th President himself. That applies both to the dead-enders who still repeat the lies and those senators and representatives who abandoned the shameful crusade only after a mob whipped up by Trump invaded the Capitol.

    There is another group of enablers who should be called to account: Corporate America. Sure, big business is now frantically trying to distance itself from Trump, with the National Association of Manufacturers going so far as to urge that Vice President Pence and the Cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment. Amid the chaos on Wednesday, the Business Roundtable called on Trump to put an end to the violence. In late November, a group of more than 160 chief executives urged the Trump Administration to accept Biden's victory and cooperate in the transition process.

    While Trump moved steadily along the path to authoritarianism, large companies allowed themselves to be bought off with tax giveaways and regulatory rollbacks.

    Yet, as with Congressional Republicans, these gestures came after four years of enabling Trump's anti-democratic practices. While Trump moved steadily along the path to authoritarianism, large companies allowed themselves to be bought off with tax giveaways and regulatory rollbacks. There were occasional confrontations with corporations such as Carrier and General Motors over layoffs and offshoring, but these were bogus, reality-TV-type confrontations that amounted to nothing.

    Regulations Rollbacks

    More significant were the policies adopted by a purportedly populist President that weakened labor unions, rolled back OSHA enforcement, curtailed fair labor standards and installed employer-friendly Secretaries of Labor.

    Corporate America has also benefited from Trump's retrograde environmental policies, especially the efforts to roll back limits on greenhouse gas emissions. On their way out the door, officials such as Andrew Wheeler of the EPA are trying to limit the options the Biden Administration will have to restore pollution controls.

    Specific corporations have also been the beneficiaries of Trump's policies. Military contractors such as Lockheed Martin have profited from the Administration's use of arms sales to countries such as Saudi Arabia as a key element of its foreign policy. Telecommunications equipment companies such as Cisco benefitted from Trump's campaign against its Chinese competitor Huawei.

    News and Social Media Giants

    Even companies chosen by Trump for his faux confrontations have profited from him or have assisted his accumulation of power. News corporations such as CNN gave Trump's early rallies undue coverage and helped propel his political rise. Social media corporations for the most part have allowed Trump to disseminate hate speech and dangerous falsehoods.

    Some prominent corporate figures have directly supported Trump, both with endorsements and substantial campaign contributions. These include Stephen Schwarzman of The Blackstone Group, Kelcy Warren of the pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners, and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.

    Other corporations and trade associations have sucked up to Trump and his family over the past four years. Last February, NAM, the organization now promoting the 25th Amendment, gave its Alexander Hamilton Award to Ivanka Trump.

    On the whole, big business has offered little more than mild rebukes to Trump's dangerous tendencies while reaping substantial benefits. Like Congressional Republicans, Corporate America needs to be held to account.

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

    Enjoy good journalism?

    … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. And unlike other news outlets, we’ve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.

    Raw Story is independent. Unhinged from corporate overlords, we fight to ensure no one is forgotten.

    We need your support in this difficult time. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click to donate by check.

    Value Raw Story?

    … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we believe in the power of progressive journalism — and we’re investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. We need your support to do what we do.

    Raw Story is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you.

    Report typos and corrections to: corrections@rawstory.com.
    READ COMMENTS - JOIN THE DISCUSSION

    Do you approve of Biden's presidency so far?

    Ted Cruz likened to a streaker at the Super Bowl for his inability to feel shame

    Bob Brigham
    February 27, 2021

    Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) received harsh criticism for his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference one week after he abandoned Texas during a fatal winter storm to vacation in Cancun.

    "Ted Cruz is so tone deaf, one wonders if the gravitational shift of millions of eyes rolling at once feeds his life force," Erin Gloria Ryan wrote for The Daily Beast. "The never-funny Senator was at it again this week at CPAC, attempting to poke fun at himself for literally leaving his constituents out in the cold only a week ago. 'I gotta say, Orlando is awesome!' Cruz said. 'It's not as nice as Cancun, but it's nice.' Does he think that helped? Does he think at all?"

    "Last weekend, I spent too much time wondering what "Cancun Ted" Cruz was thinking—or not thinking," she wrote. "Something about the image of him lumbering with an overstuffed suitcase through the airport, his Texas-themed face mask concealing what I could only imagine was a sh*t-eating grin, was a demonstration of Olympian shamelessness. The Nerve!"

    She described the unique talent of the Texas senator.

    "An inability to feel shame is Ted Cruz's greatest strength as a politician. It's a superpower. It is what enables famous sexual abuse ignorer Jim Jordan to whine about 'cancel culture' to Fox News' audience of millions. It is what allows a person to shoplift from a Walgreens in the background of a local news report about how much shoplifting is going on at that particular Walgreens. It enables a famous man to sleep with an adult film star while his wife is postpartum. And it's impossible to look away from, like the streaker in the middle of the Super Bowl," she wrote.

    These qualities is why Cruz will remain in the public eye.

    "Democrats and even some Republicans have called for Cruz to resign over the vexingly clueless vacation. But he won't resign. He didn't resign after he helped incite an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that led to five deaths and two subsequent suicides. Why would Ted Cruz resign over flying to Mexico, realizing that people were mad, and then pivoting right out of there a la Grandpa Simpson at La Maison Derrière? Why would anything happen to Cruz at all beyond the public agreeing that Ted Cruz is insufferable? With that and a dollar, I could buy a can of Sprite!" she wrote. "Of course, it's possible to think about more than one bad political behavior at once, and dunking on Ted Cruz is fun, up to the point that dunking is all that's going on. It would be best for America if shame experienced a renaissance, if all its Ted Cruzes woke up one morning after being visited by the Shame Fairy, suddenly horrified by the way they have conducted themselves. But until then, beware the canny and the boring."

    Read the full column.

    Pelosi has Congress stay after midnight for $1.9 trillion coronavirus bill --  with $1,400 checks

    Bob Brigham
    February 26, 2021

    The House of Representatives was expected to stay pass midnight and into early Saturday morning to pass a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.

    A procedure vote late Friday night passed on a party-line vote, suggesting Republicans would unite against the bill that pollsters say is popular with American voters.

    The bill will ramp up vaccinations, extend unemployment insurance, provide aid to local governments and provide $1,400 checks.

    The House bill also includes raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour even though the Senate parliamentarian ruled that could not be included using the reconciliation process that bypasses the filibuster so it can pass with a simple majority.

    The package is a major priority of President Joe Biden's administration.


    Friday 11:22pm: House NOW debating $1.9 COVID-19 relief bill for the next hour followed final votes. https://t.co/Rdbrt1IlRJ
    — Craig Caplan (@Craig Caplan)1614399933.0

    Here's how white evangelicals found themselves worshipping a golden Trump

    John Stoehr, The Editorial Board
    February 26, 2021

    Social media was ablaze this morning with a video taken at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington of a golden statue in the image of Donald Trump. People right away associated the graven image with the golden calf of the Bible—when Moses took so long bringing Yahweh's Law down from Mt. Sinai that his brother succumbed to pressure to erect an idol to a competing god. "Mentioned in Exodus 32 and I Kings 12 in the Old Testament, worship of the golden calf is seen as a supreme act of apostasy, the rejection of a faith once confessed," according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. "The figure is probably a representation of the Egyptian bull god Apis in the earlier period and of the Canaanite fertility god Baal in the latter."

    Now, there's more important stuff going on right now. The parliamentarian of the United States Senate, for instance, ruled last night that the provision in the president's covid relief package that raises the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour cannot pass by way of "reconciliation," which is a special budget rule requiring a simple majority instead of the usual 60 votes. That, plus the reluctance of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to monkey with the rule, means the hard work of governance is becoming visible. By comparison, a statue of "the Golden Ass," as someone quipped, seems rather petty. I disagree. This image captures something important and dire about the forces that still threaten our republic. It's worth our time thinking about them.

    Why are white evangelical Protestants so obedient to authority? I think because it's literally beaten into them.

    Let's start with the obvious. Trump's most reliable supporters are white evangelical Protestants (WEPs). These are the people who are most likely to attend this weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference. You'd think, given how devoutly religious the former president's supporters claim to be, that they would be outraged by the sight of a golden statue in Trump's image, an idol akin to the golden calf, a graven image for worshipping a competing god. You'd think WEPs would be discomfited even by the appearance of elevating a mere mortal (Donald Trump) to the level of the Almighty.

    I've explained many times before how two things that should not co-exist find a way of co-existing. But I have not explained one of the psychological roots of this cognitive dissonance. The reason WEPs can look at a statue of Donald Trump and not be overly vexed with worry that they might be worshipping a competing God is because their leaders said it was OK. What Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr and others say matters a lot to these people, because for nearly all of them obedience to authority is the same thing as morality. Whose authority? That of the leaders of the One Truth Faith, of course. Why are WEPs so obedient? I think because it's literally beaten into them.

    Violence is what I'm talking about. Specifically, violence committed against children for the purpose of breaking their wills in order to save their souls from an eternity of burning in a Lake of Fire. This is often called "spanking," but spanking sounds almost fun. (For some people, it is fun!) "Spanking" or its clinical counterpart, "corporal punishment," do not capture fully a child's experience of enduring pain at the hands of someone whom they cannot stop loving. Trust me when I say the unconditional love of a child for a parent means the child will surrender his will for the sake of that love. There is no alternative in a violent setting, except the alternative of psychic death.

    With the understanding that violence is the same thing as love, the child is ready to accept anything—and I really mean anything. Critics of white evangelical Protestants do not, and perhaps cannot, appreciate how bottomless the desire is among WEPs to believe anything, even when it profoundly conflicts with their own stated religious convictions. If a WEP leader says it's OK to have around a golden statue of a former president venerated by their community, then it's OK. Full stop. There is no discussion among the vast majority of the tens of millions of WEPs who idolize Donald Trump.

    I do not mean to portray these people as monolithic or as robots. There is plenty of disagreement within the WEP community. And I do not mean to portray these people as savaging their own kids. There are plenty of ways of "disciplining" children without violating the letter of laws that prohibit child abuse. I do mean, however, to convey the imminent danger we face. It's too easy to ghettoize WEPs—to say they are a cult separate from the larger body of believers. "Cult" strains credulity when we're talking about tens of millions primed from a young age to believe that the reality they inhabit is a shadow of a "real" reality and that access to that "real" reality requires that they repudiate the reality that everyone outside of their community actually inhabits.

    Violence begets lies begets attempts to not only compete with reality but replace it. Violence begets lies begets attempts to force the rest of us to surrender our wills and our understanding of the reality we inhabit and live inside their lie. That's what I see when I see WEPs taking selfies next to a new Golden Calf. You should see it, too.

     
    Trending
    Latest
    Videos

    Biden admin wants to charge reporters $170 each time they enter the White House: report

    Here's how Mary Trump helped the Manhattan DA track Uncle Donald's new patterns of tax fraud

    Kellyanne Conway trashed Trump behind his back and used leaks to survive the White House ‘Hunger Games’: report

    Judge shoots down Proud Boy defense he was just following Trump’s orders

    Republican Madison Cawthorn harassed women in college: BuzzFeed exposé

    FBI has pinpointed who killed Officer Sicknick -- but they have yet to identify suspect's name: report

    'No, I don't understand': Costco CEO stuns Lindsey Graham during disagreement over minimum wage increase

    'Worshipping the golden jackass': CPAC mocked for displaying giant gold Trump statue

    Embattled South Dakota DA was reading Joe Biden conspiracy theories on his phone when he killed pedestrian with his car

    Ted Cruz likened to a streaker at the Super Bowl for his inability to feel shame

    Pelosi has Congress stay after midnight for $1.9 trillion coronavirus bill --  with $1,400 checks

    Here's how white evangelicals found themselves worshipping a golden Trump

    Will Republican's stimulus vote count after he skipped Congress to attend 'white nationalist' convention?

    Why winter weather is no match for rats in America's 'rattiest city'

    Megyn Kelly lashes out at Don Lemon and Rachel Maddow on HBO's 'Real Time'

    GOP Leader attacked Dems for passing survival checks late at night -- and it did not end well

    'President Biden choked': NYT columnist slams White House for 'letting a murderer walk'

    Donald Trump Jr bombs at CPAC -- and gets scorched for lying that 'radical' Dems 'banned the Muppets'

    GOP lawmakers lie to skip House votes – so they can attend CPAC in Orlando

    Ted Cruz made an outrageous claim -- but MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle was having none of it

    County meeting goes off the rails as man dressed as the Lone Ranger rants in defense of the N-word

    Ted Cruz flayed for mocking AOC for fearing for her life – after she raised $5 million for Texas storm victims

    ‘Unhinged lunatic’: Ted Cruz mocked after 'embarrassing' himself with bizarrely over-the-top CPAC rant

    Ted Cruz at CPAC screams 'freedom!' at the top of his lungs -- and then keeps screaming

    WATCH: CPAC attendees surround Jim Acosta and chant 'CNN sucks!'

    WATCH: CPAC crowd erupts in jeers and boos after hosts ask them to wear masks

    Proud Boys leader throws pals under the bus for attacking Capitol during CNN interview

     
     

    Copyright © 2021 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 | Masthead | Privacy Policy | For corrections or concerns, please email corrections@rawstory.com.

    Manage Preferences

    Thanks for your support!

    Did you enjoy Raw Story this year? Join us! We're offering RawStory ad-free for 15% off - just $2 per week. From now until March 15th.

    Lady Gaga's dogs safely returned: LA police

    House approves Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid

    NBA to investigate Jeremy Lin’s claim that he was called ‘coronavirus’ on the court

    Close
    Copy link