Thursday, April 08, 2021

HOW IT STARTED/HOW IT'S GOING

Townhall's Kurt Schlichter loved capitalism...



Until ...



Kurt writes:
Old habits die hard, and now it’s time for the GOP’s habitual support of big business to die, and to die hard.

Look around – the corporations have decided it’s a great time to use their power against us. There used to be a kind of gentleman’s agreement – they stay out of our business and we stay out of theirs.

But they broke that agreement. They decided to go all in. And it’s no coincidence that the political positions they have taken conform exactly to those of the Democrat Party. So, the hell with them.
(Stops reading, looks up corporate political action committees.)
... The companies were never with us culturally – they wanted fewer regs, lower taxes, open borders, and docile workers. They didn’t care about social issues. They stayed out of it. But a few decades ago, when those icky evangelicals and others who actually worshipped something besides the almighty dollar showed up, the corporate types got restless. After all, it made for awkward convos at the country club when you were allied with the Jesus gun people from out there in Americaland. So, today, they have intervened in favor of our enemies, but they expect us to sit back and pretend it’s 1987.

Why did they go with the liberal establishment? Because that’s who the multinational bigwigs are, and always have been. It’s always about class, and the class these robber barons circulated within looks down on regular Americans
Back in 1987, did Schlichter somehow overlook the fact that "multinational bigwigs" tend not to be churchgoing gun owners living in shotgun shacks in rural Texas? Was this information concealed from him as part of a sinister plot to deceive him about the nature of capitalism?

No. He always knew, and he had no problem with it. He mocked other people who thought capitalists had too much power. Let them have whatever they want! They're capitalists! They've earned it!

Until the moment when they started using their power to do stuff he doesn't like. Then it suddenly became time to smash The System.

I sometimes see Schlichter on social media complaining about "crony capitalism," which is a term that has an actual meaning, but not the way Schlichter applies it. To Schlichter, "crony capitalism" is "capitalism acting in the interests of people I don't like."

Sorry that the superficial but occasionally consequential interest in social responsibility on the part of large corporations upsets you, Kurt. But you should have seen the potential for this in 1987.

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