Last night Brian Williams said "Big corps don't like to be associated with seditionists."
He was talking about the corporations who have suspended donations to any member of Congress who objected to the certification of the Electoral College vote. This campaign got going when Judd Legum and his new publication Popular Information. made some calls.
Popular Information contacted 144 corporations that, through their corporate PACs, donated to one or more of these eight Senators in the 2020 election cycle. Popular Information asked if they would continue to support these Senators in the future. In response, three major companies said they would stop donating to any member of Congress who objected to the certification of the Electoral College vote.
-
Major corporations say they will stop donating to members of Congress who tried to overturn the election
- Jan 10, 2021 by Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria
1. BREAKING
3 major corporations say they'll stop donating to members of Congress who tried to overturn the election
BlueCross BlueShield (@BCBSAssociation)
Marriott (@MarriottIntl)@CommerceBank
Follow along for more on these 3 plus 141 other corpshttps://t.co/r4Z4TjJUCe
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 10, 2021
I jumped on this as soon as I saw it and applied it to Nebraska Rep. Adrian Smith. I looked up his donations from the first 4 corporations listed at OpenSecrets.org and alerted the local media in Nebraska.
@BCBSAssociation & @Citi will stop donating to any member of Congress who objected to the certification of the Electoral College vote.
That's @RepAdrianSmith District 3 Nebraska.@KSNBLocal4, @NTVNEWS, @fredmknapp @RutaUlcinaite @1011_News, @WOWT6News https://t.co/nBdMQgWaZe pic.twitter.com/L57vexSZG2— Spocko (@spockosbrain) January 12, 2021
Then as more corps were added I started looking up if he got donations from any of them.
Check @OpenSecretsDC to see if @RepAdrianSmith got donations from @ATT @MorganStanley @Deloitte @amazon @blackrock @AmericanExpress @Hallmark @Verizon
Pls ask him @jcornellKETV @PaulHammelOWH @WOWT6News @ChrisDunkerLJS @LJSdon @LincolnBizBuzz https://t.co/Hf5JVlzM6a pic.twitter.com/tqqHy42RS9— Spocko (@spockosbrain) January 13, 2021
If you want to get involved here are some steps that you can take.
1) Find out who is on the list of people who voted to object to the certification of the Electoral College vote:
The long list of Republicans who voted to reject election results (The Guardian LINK)
2) See which corporations have already pulled money
Major corporations say they will stop donating to members of Congress who tried to overturn the election
Popular Information has an updated list. (Popular Information LINK )
3) Go to OpenSecrets.org
Search for the corporation that has pulled money, for example, Blue Cross Blue Shield
Then click the recipients tab.
Scroll down to ALL RECIPIENTS and type in a name from the Sedition Caucus list.
I used Smith, Adrian from District 3 in Nebraska. Here is the results from 2020 Donations Blue Cross Blue Shield
It’s a Big Red district in more ways than one, here is how they have voted in the last four Presidential elections.
2008 President John McCain 69% – Barack Obama 30%
2012 President Mitt Romney 70% – Barack Obama 28%
2016 President Donald Trump 74% – Hillary Clinton 20%
2020 President Donald Trump 75% – Joe Biden 22%
Smith might see the polling that the 51% of Republicans Think Trump Deserves No Blame For Capitol Riots. But i'm thinking that if we polled the people in the corporations that are giving money they would NOT be holding the same views.
Do this for each cycle (2012-2020) You can either do a screenshot or export to a spreadsheet to keep track for a specific company and person.
4) Facebook or Tweet this info to your friends and the local media.
This is important because the local media aren't tracking this Pick big employers or important companies to your community.
5) Repeat for as many corps/ seditionists you can. (If you want to cross check to see if they voted against impeachment too here is how to check with the Clerk's office.)
6) Call corporations that have NOT pulled their support yet.
Here is a tool from my brilliant friends at Color of Change.
Tell These Major Corporations To Suspend Republican Donations!
LINK
If you WORK at a corporation that has not spoken up yet, you can check the line or contact Judd Legum to see what the status is and perhaps help your executives see the problems with them tainting their brand by associating with seditionists. (BTW, you should also subscribe to Popular Information.)
Today the New York Times wrote about this:
“You cannot overstate the consternation by lawmakers about fund-raising drying up,” said a former senior Trump administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations with Republican lawmakers.
I suggest focusing on people with connections to you and be very specific. I chose Nebraska because I have friends there. I chose Blue Cross Blue Shield because they were a big donor to Smith and the health insurance industry is very powerful.
Make an Impact? Expect a Backlash!
You might not feel you have any power, but if you work for a big corp and they start hearing from employees saying, 'Associating with these people is bad for our brand." they might listen, especially now that other corps have already gotten on board.
I wasn't surprised by the number of Republicans elected officials who STILL voted to object to certifying Biden and kept the lies about the election going because they faced no financial consequences for doing so. They read the polling and a big percent of their voters still believed the lies that there was massive voter fraud.
But as I've demonstrated over the years with right wing media is that in America's market-based system to really put pressures on people to change, you have to look into where they get their money. Who do they get it from & what do THOSE people care about?
If you can show the money suppliers that associating with violent rhetoric and the people who spout it taints their brand, they WILL leave.
Show more corporations that associating with the politicians who are still supporting lies and violent rhetoric taints their brands.
UPDATE 1/15/2021 6:30 pm Here are more companies that are pulling funding.
Pfizer, Dow Inc, Mastercard, AT&T, Deloitte, Morgan Stanley., Airbnb, Amazon, Verizon, Intel, Disney, KPMG, Walmart, Holland & Hart, Southern Company, Exelon, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Comcast/NBCUniversal, Hallmark, Facebook, BlackRock, Visa, Nike, S&P Global, American Express, International Council of Shopping Centers , Boston Scientific, Hilton, Capital One.
Here is what to expect from the seditionist politicians
They will:
1) Deny they are spewing violent rhetoric
2) Whine. "They are attacking us for our speech! We were just asking questions!"
3) Attack the people who point out their violent rhetoric and support of lies to the corporations.
(Only a few will attack the actual corporations that pulled the money)
4) Double down on their support for Trump while whining about being a victim
However, SOME will
5) Change their behavior
Be aware that those that do change their behavior will say that it had NOTHING to do with the loss of funding. They will talk about how they get death threats from their own people. (Which is terrible and we should encourage them to ask the FBI to investigate so people can be arrested for doing it.)
The right wing knows that death threats work. On their side threats of criminal prosecution have been blocked or lessened by failure to prosecute crimes. So for many of these politicians, financial threats are the most powerful. Unless they have one of the 63 billionaires behind them that Trump had, they WILL respond to the loss of legitimate corporate money.
They will be looking for an excuse/reason that they stopped with their sedition. They will talk about unity, lowering the temperature and demanding that the Democrats reach out to them. Some will want to be part of the New Republican Party that the MSM really is desperate to make happen.
The bottom line is that the loss of corporate money is what will give them the excuse to publicly walk away from the Trump craziness. Let’s help make it happen.