I TOLD YOU THE GOP WOULD GET ITS CORPORATE CASH BACK

I rolled my eyes back in January when we were told that the Republican Party was in deep trouble, one sign of which was the withholding of cash by corporate donors. In a piece titled "The Post-Trump GOP, Gutted," Jim VandeHei of Axios wrote:

The corporate bans on giving to the 147 House and Senate Republicans who voted against election certification are growing and virtually certain to hold.

"Virtually certain to hold"? I wrote (and I wish I'd been a lot snarkier):

... as the memories of January 6 fade, I expect corporations to give the way they always have.

Well, knock me over with a feather:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce revealed Friday it won't withhold political donations from lawmakers who simply voted against certifying the presidential election results and instead decide on a case-by-case basis.

... The Chamber's use of selective donations frees it to continue supporting some high-profile legislators who earned its endorsement and financial support in prior elections.

The organization has previously backed all eight of the senators who voted against certifying President Biden's Electoral College win — including Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas — through either endorsements or contributions from its political action committee.

"We do not believe it is appropriate to judge members of Congress solely based on their votes on the electoral certification," the Chamber's Senior Political Strategist Ashlee Rich Stephenson wrote in the recent memo.

Translation: "They're Republicans. Their economic ideas are our our economic ideas. Of course we're going to back them."

This was entirely predictable in January, when very smart people were foreseeing doom for the GOP. There was no actual evidence that white America was replulsed by the party, or even by the specific members who supported overturning the election results. And it was inevitable that whatever outrage there was would fade over time (except among liberals, and who cares what we think?).

Even in January, parts of corporate America were signaling that their response to the overturn campaign was a fig leaf.

UPDATE: In an internal memo obtained by https://t.co/Gl6evXRDcZ, @Pfizer says it will not donate "to any of the 147 Members of Congress who voted against certifying the Electoral College results" for at least 6 months https://t.co/r4Z4TjJUCe pic.twitter.com/RmGvjtYIk7

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 16, 2021

Six months? That meant Pfizer wanted to do some virtue signaling, but also wanted to go back to business as usual well before the next election cycle. The Chamber of Commerce is now making it clear that that's where all of the corporate ssctor is heading.