Senator Josh Hawley is a “muscular conservative” unafraid to take on the radical left on any issue, in the mold of President Donald Trump. And Hawley’s latest battle is with woke Big Business, which is trying to foist destructive ideologies like critical race theory, the radical LGBT agenda, and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (or “we hate white people, males, Christians, and heterosexuals”) on America. In his opinion piece entitled “It’s time to end economic handouts for woke corporations” published by Fox News on May 12, 2022, Hawley declares:
“Big business is no friend to conservatives—that’s been clear for years. And it’s increasingly no friend to America. In the postwar era just a few decades ago, many corporate leaders could honestly say that they loved this country. Now that seems a stretch. Today’s multinationals have embraced a toxic blend of offshoring and woke politics, selling out American workers even as they attack American values. But conservatives don’t have to take this behavior any longer.”
Indeed, woke Big Business has now openly entered the cultural and political arenas as a staunch ally of the left. Hawley writes:
“You could see the mask slip back in 2015, when big companies started bullying states into backing down from efforts to protect Americans’ religious liberties. Seven years later—under pressure from activist employees and investors—big business’s priorities now apparently extend to voter ID laws, abortion, and sex education classes for younger and younger children, to name just a few examples…CEOs now regularly release jargon-heavy statements denouncing conservative social policies across the board. One Disney higher-up even bragged recently about ‘adding queerness’ to children’s programming wherever she could.”
But this is a recent development of Big Business:
“[This] wasn’t always the case. In days gone by, the companies themselves mostly stayed out of social debates. After all, as Michael Jordan famously quipped, ‘Republicans buy sneakers too.’”
And whenever conservatives in Washington complain about the woke agenda of Big Business, it pulls out the same old tripe that business and the right must always be allied, no matter what corporations do. Hawley states:
“Whenever there’s a whiff of political pushback to all this, a legion of D.C. lobbyists immediately descends to regurgitate the same tired talking points. Inevitably, the lobby groups complain that any consequences for woke corporations, no matter how marginal, will devastate the American economy. We’re told that the relationship between business and the right is a one-way street: companies can say and do whatever they want, no matter how destructive to conservative principles, and Republicans—simply because they’re Republicans and ostensibly “business-friendly”—need to be OK with it.”
Hawley says conservatives are no longer “OK with it”:
“It’s time for that free ride to end. Big companies must no longer take support from conservatives for granted. What Congress has given, Congress can also take away. And there are plenty of options for the chopping block.“
Disney is the first target of Hawley in regard to having its privileges taken away:
“Let’s start with Disney. Over the years Disney’s copyright protections for characters like Mickey Mouse have been extended further and further into the future, allowing the company to maintain a stranglehold on its ever-increasing intellectual property stockpile. Disney specifically asked Congress for more protections. As Disney doubles down on its hostility to American values, it’s time to start paring those protections back.”
Likewise, Hawley thinks woke Major League Baseball should lose its special immunity to anti-trust laws that prohibit monopolies:
“Similarly, Major League Baseball—which was all too happy to try to bully the State of Georgia over its election integrity laws—should lose its longstanding antitrust exemption, which no other industry enjoys in the same way.”
He also calls for an end to special protections for woke Big Tech:
“And of course, Section 230—stretched far beyond its original design—has shielded Big Tech companies from legal liability for far too long. It should be drastically reformed or repealed entirely. Big Tech doesn’t need a handout—it can afford to operate on a level playing field with everyone else.”
Significantly, Hawley argues that Congress has the power to curtail the privileges given to woke corporations:
“To be clear: Congress has every right to use its discretion. Tax breaks and corporate structures are themselves creations of the law. The very economic order that allows CEOs to reap colossal profits is the product of policy choices made in Washington.”
Hawley concludes his piece by saying it is high time for Republicans to reign in the power of woke Big Business:
“By eliminating special preferences and carve outs, we can support competition in the economy, and encourage innovation and the rise of new firms that can challenge the big incumbents, all while turbocharging prosperity here at home. In America, the people—not the corporations—are in charge. Republicans need to start acting like it.”
Importantly, Hawley has already started the process of reigning in the privileges of woke Big Business. Just last week he introduced a bill that would limit copyright protections to 56 years, applied retroactively. If this bill were to pass, Disney would lose protections for many of its creations, as they are older than that period of time. Previously, Disney had successfully lobbied Congress to pass the 1976 Copyright Act and the 1998 Copyright Extension Term Act (better known as the “1998 Micky Mouse Protection Act,”), both of which extended the time of copyright protections so as to protect many Disney creations whose copyrights were expiring. Hawley wants to put an end to the days of woke Disney’s dominance in Washington.
So there you have it. A fearless Republican Senator who is unafraid to take on woke Big Business. And he is putting his money where his mouth is by already introducing a bill that would strip billions of dollars from a Disney Corporation that wants to foist its “not-so-secret-gay agenda” on unsuspecting children and wants schools to indoctrinate children as young as 5 in the radical LGBT agenda. Let’s hope that more Republicans develop a backbone like Hawley and join him in the charge to emasculate woke corporations.