Opinion: McConnell's self-defeating battle against woke CEOs

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's recent warning to the corporate CEOs of America that they would face serious consequences for using "economic blackmail" to protest against voter suppression laws is neither a gaffe nor a misstatement. Rather, it reflects the state of a Republican Party that is settling into its post-Donald Trump identity.

McConnell's "advice" to the business leaders to "stay out of politics" and not to pick sides "in these big fights" came after several major American companies, including Delta and Coca-Cola, which are both headquartered in Georgia, condemned the state's new laws restricting ballot access and Major League Baseball decided to move this year's All-Star Game out of Atlanta in protest of the move by the Republican-controlled state government.

Although McConnell's comments appeared most targeted at corporate response to Georgia's new law regarding voting, he expanded his critique of business taking positions on political issues that differ from those of the GOP. "From election law to environmentalism to radical social agendas to the Second Amendment, parts of the private sector keep dabbling in behaving like a woke parallel government," he said in a statement on Monday.

These comments sound particularly absurd coming from a leader of a Republican Party that for generations has been the party of big business, not least because CEOs and other business leaders have long been an important fundraising source for the Republican Party and for McConnell specifically. While McConnell may be upset about business opposing Republican efforts to make it more difficult for people to vote, his party would suffer if CEOs decided to stay out of politics by stopping their campaign contributions.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/opinion-mcconnell-s-self-defeating-battle-against-woke-ceos/ar-BB1foTBv