Phil Murphy made an actual “reopening” announcement this week unlike last Monday’s fake-out, Save Jerseyans. Still, to use a favorite liberal word, the announcement was “problematic” in a number of ways, the most obvious of which was the fact that small businesses (and restaurants in particular) were left with little to celebrate.
“For small restaurants and bars, the six-foot rule means they won’t be able to increase capacity, even with the Governor’s announcement,” opined state Senator Declan O’Scanlon (R-13) following Murphy’s daily briefing. “The Governor is waiting for the CDC to make the call, but common sense and the data support doing away with the arbitrary six-feet of separation.”
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Declan is 100% correct, but there’s also more going on here than an imprudent decision to wait on the CDC.
Murphy’s attitude and corresponding policies are a clear reflection of corporate America’s new alliance with the Democrat Party.
They gave big money to Democrat candidates in 2020. A Bloomberg columnist – noting the corporate world’s shift to the Democrats – attributed board rooms’ changing politics to a cold, cool political calculation.
“The explanation for this new economic narrative is straightforward. Republicans scored decades of policy achievements by lowering taxes and restraining inflation,” wrote Conor Sen back in January. “What’s needed to drive higher levels of economic growth now is more government spending, which can kickstart a cycle of hiring, investment and consumer spending.”
Sorry, Conor (where’d the other “n” go by the way?), but I don’t know a single successful business mind who believes that. Warren Buffett is sounding the inflation alarm as we speak. The housing market will come back down to earth when foreclosures and landlord suits, delayed by COVID-19 executive orders, eventually start rolling. Trouble lies ahead; the only question is how far ahead.
Nope. The real reason corporate America changed horses:
(1) Corporate leadership structures are increasingly woke.
(2) Corporations believe the American mom – long the key demo for any consumer campaign – are going woke.
So the answer as ever is culture, folks. Politics follows culture, and a generation of university brainwashed MBA students are taking the reins and leaning hard left. Corporations like the MLB that can afford to be woke are part of the Biden/Harris/Murphy Democrats new core constituency; they’re not patriotic and they’re not sticking up for the free market.
Bigger companies can also absorb the cost of COVID-19 regulations and restrictions better than your favorite local “mom and pop shop,” l0cal pizza joint, or main street boutique. As Declan pointed out above, a major fast food chain can deal with 6-foot distancing for a time. Small restaurants cannot.
Murphy isn’t just adopting a weird interpretation of science and making it up as he goes along. He doesn’t give a shit about small businesses. Institutionally corrupt public sector unions, major corporations, “direct deposit parents” barely touched by COVID-19 and the permanently dependent (the most reliable Democrat interest group) form his reelection coalition. Joe’s Pizza, Jane’s Laundry, and Smith’s Hardware are red-headed stepchildren.
If you want to look at it this way: the culture was moving America’s major corporations to the Left for awhile now, but COVID-19 likely widened the gulf between companies powerful enough to influence government and those who are the mercy of minor despots like Phil Murphy.
There’s a reason why Michele Siekerka (head of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association) is thought to be a Jack Ciattarelli running mate possibility. Republicans are going to need to lean into their new role as the party of small business if they want to survive the Trumpian political realignment.
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