HOUSE REPUBLICANS PLAN TO INVESTIGATE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IF THEY TAKE THE MAJORITY

[EndDomination]

The crazy shyt is that "ESG" is mostly just greenwashing bullshyt. I have little faith that there's very much decent that's going to come out of companies' self-imposed ESG standards, outside of unicorns like Patagonia it's just a publicity scheme to keep the public heat off of them and avoid regulations. That fact that Republicans want to oppose even THAT bullshyt is pretty fukking weak.





How does that differ from the agenda of centrist Democrats?

I don't know about the rest of the country but here in California I've repeatedly seen the Chamber of Commerce endorse Democrats and Democrat-sponsored legislation, they usually support the Dems on most spending for infrastructure or anything else where Republicans are being obstructionist for dumb reasons. The LA Chamber of Commerce even endorsed Newsom during the recall. And up in Portland the Democratic mayor got elected due to a very cozy relationship with the Portland business community including an endorsement from their version of the Chamber of Commerce, and the Democrat Betsy Johnson who is running for governor as an independent after some 20 years as a Democrat House member has always supported corporate shyt and is completely bankrolled by billionaires.







Oz is facing Fetterman though, who is legit on economic issues and by no means an establishment/centrist. No Chamber of Commerce wants to see someone like him in power.

I'm less familiar with the history of the Chamber of Commerce - but going just from the article it read as if the Chamber of Commerce almost exclusively backed Republicans with the occasional token Democrat over the past twenty years - with some pre-1990s complexity regarding a small-business/multi-national business conflict that led to a deviation.

I don't think your analysis (particular on regional issues) is wrong, but I do think its hyperbolic to see the CoC as more of a centrist Dem institution than a GOP institution

 

[Professor Emeritus]

I'm less familiar with the history of the Chamber of Commerce - but going just from the article it read as if the Chamber of Commerce almost exclusively backed Republicans with the occasional token Democrat over the past twenty years - with some pre-1990s complexity regarding a small-business/multi-national business conflict that led to a deviation.

I don't think your analysis (particular on regional issues) is wrong, but I do think its hyperbolic to see the CoC as more of a centrist Dem institution than a GOP institution

I think we just had a miscommunication. I don't think the Chamber of Commerce is more a centrist Dem institution than GOP. I think it's a majority establishment GOP institution that's also quite comfortable with wealthy centrist Dems and is only disturbed by the far-right extremist Republicans.

Sort of like the military. Sure the military is traditionally "conservative", but they also get along with establishment Democrats great, and push back against Trump's ridiculousness when they see it as out of line with the status quo.

 

[88m3]

Chamber of commerce is more aligned with wealthy establishment/centrist Democrats than they are with the far right.

such a bold faced lie


anything to wake up and attack democrats though I suppose

 

[bnew]

I think the key word is the far-right which is isolationist and anti-globalism which makes sense why the chambers of commerce wouldn't ally with them.

 

[88m3]

I think the key word is the far-right which is isolationist and anti-globalism which makes sense why the chambers of commerce wouldn't ally with them.

How would you describe Trump and the GOP of today?

I don't think we're getting hung up on semantics.

They have overwhelmingly supported the GOP and GOP candidates.

 

[bnew]

How would you describe Trump and the GOP of today?

I don't think we're getting hung up on semantics.

They have overwhelmingly supported the GOP and GOP candidates.

did you read the article? the chambers of commerce was against trumps nomination in 2016.

 

[88m3]

did you read the article? the chambers of commerce was against trumps nomination in 2016.

Who gives a shyt

United States Chamber of Commerce - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I wouldn't even describe the Chamber of Commerce as liberal let alone aligned with the Democratic Party

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

ESG is a total joke.

 

[bnew]

Who gives a shyt

United States Chamber of Commerce - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I wouldn't even describe the Chamber of Commerce as liberal let alone aligned with the Democratic Party

I wouldn't describe them as liberal either but from their point of view consummate neoliberals in the democrat party are the lesser of two evils when the far-right is their only other choice.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

such a bold faced lie


anything to wake up and attack democrats though I suppose

Notice, as usual, no receipts. Why aren't you disagreeing with these quotes from the OP article?


But as the Republican Party and the Chamber have polarized to opposite sides of the conservative movement, a deeper disagreement between the two — dating back to the movement that formed around Barry Goldwater in the 1950s and ’60s — has been reawakened.

At the height of the New Deal era after World War II, Democrats and liberal Republicans were united in the belief that cooperation between big business, big labor, and government was the secret to the era’s economic boom. John Kenneth Galbraith, the nation’s most famous economist and later President John F. Kennedy’s adviser, dubbed it “The Affluent Society” in a 1958 book that was both a cultural and a political sensation.

big business launched its counterattack on both labor and government in the 1970s, ushering in the neoliberal era

But the Chamber started drifting back to the center in the early part of the Clinton years, endorsing the administration’s health care proposal known as “Hillarycare,” for the first lady.

The Chamber’s top lobbying job, typically one of Washington’s plummest K Street assignments, sat open for several months until it was filled by two-term, back-bench former Rep. Evan Jenkins, who, like many Republicans from West Virginia, began his career as a Democrat.

In 2020, the Chamber endorsed 23 House Democrats in swing districts, a sharp break from the past practice of endorsing a nearly exclusive slate of Republicans, with one or two Democrats thrown on the list for a patina of bipartisan perception. The pivot came after the Chamber had been unsuccessful in stopping Trump from getting the 2016 GOP nomination — with a top Chamber lobbyist even endorsing Hillary Clinton and speaking at the Democratic National Convention. The business group delighted in Trump’s tax cut, largely written by Chamber ally Speaker Paul Ryan, but once Democrats took control in 2018, the Chamber began hedging its political bets by backing moderate Democrats.

“The Chamber of Commerce, after what they did in 2020, they basically became persona non grata in the conservative movement,” said one well-connected Republican operative. “There was already a split in the conservative movement, who were never fans of the Chamber, but you had more moderate members and even those Republicans, particularly the ones in the House, have had enough of the Chamber.”




And most especially the closing:

That the Chamber feels at home in the Democratic Party ought to be cause for concern for the party’s progressive wing, Galbraith said. “The extirpation of any old line liberalism in the Democratic Party may have opened up space for them,” he said.


Note also that in this thread are actual receipts of the Chamber of Commerce endorsing Democrats in the 2020 elections, endorsing Portland's mayor, opposing Newsome's recall, etc.


Everything given in this thread so far proves that the Chamber of Commerce has largely preferred centrist pro-business Democrats over far-right Republicans, and that while there have been exceptions that general trend goes back at least 60 years. Even when the Chamber drifted right, the centrist establishment Dems also drifted right, such as in the 1990s when moderate Democrats supported deregulation while doing little concrete for unions.



Are you going to counter any of that directly or are you just going to toss out another ad hominem because I didn't obey your party line?

 

[Professor Emeritus]

did you read the article? the chambers of commerce was against trumps nomination in 2016.

I'm pretty sure he didn't read at all considering that he used Trump and today's GOP as his argument.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

ESG is a total joke.

The only thing positive about it for me is I want a strong precedent set that businesses can legitimately pursue something other than profit without being sued by their shareholders.

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

The only thing positive about it for me is I want a strong precedent set that businesses can legitimately pursue something other than profit without being sued by their shareholders.

I mean yeah that and other aspects are good, I mean mostly that's businesses and individuals generally dont give a shyt about it no matter what they say

 

[Wolfpac]

If the GOP takes the House, Hunter better leave the country.

And go to a country that doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US and lay low. I can already hear Hannity bytching about it on his show.

 

[Pressure]

This is all a result of the national leaders no longer changing their practice of almost exclusively backing Conservatives.

The clash also provides a window into a growing rift in the business community over its place in the Donald Trump-dominated Republican Party, which has at times embraced policies the corporate world opposes. While the Chamber has almost exclusively endorsed Republicans over the past decade, it has collided with the president over everything from tariffs to immigration.

Donors and members have raised concerns loudly about the formula Chamber leadership is using to endorse candidates. The organization scores each member based upon how their voting record aligns with its priorities. To win the Chamber’s endorsement, a lawmaker must receive at least a 70 percent score.

But in recent days, Chamber management has faced questions about whether it is manipulating numbers to get the Democrats past the threshold. Heath Lovell, an executive at Alliance Coal, a company overseen by Republican megadonor Joe Craft, has pressed officials on how the Chamber is making its calculations.