Off Brand
The Real Reason So Many Companies Are Ditching Trump
Corporate America’s sudden change of heart has less to do with politics and more to do with chaos
We appear to be living through an unparalleled moment — a turning point, perhaps — in the relationship between business and the political system. The big social media companies de-platformed the president; Apple, Google, and Amazon effectively crippled the hard-right Twitter knockoff Parler by taking away its access to app stores and web hosting; and payment processor Stripe has pulled its service from Trump’s campaign website. And that’s just the beginning.
This goes beyond the imperative for companies and brands to leave behind the usual stay-neutral, apolitical business tradition and articulate a point of view that I discussed mere days ago. These are examples of major enterprises demonstrating genuine power. You can see why some observers see the development as potentially unnerving: Does this reflect a new and rawly partisan attitude from business?
Actually, that’s not really what’s going on here. Sure, “business” writ large has a bias, but it’s not a monolithic pro-Democrat or anti-Republican one. It’s anti-chaos.
