But selective righteousness, and the stain of hypocrisy, could be even worse. There was a reason for the political tact of the prior generation of CEOs, and it wasn't uniform conservatism on their part.
There are other reasons to doubt that corporate America's activist phase, and therefore its estrangement from the Republican party, will last. For now, the substance of CEO liberalism is civic: it is racial justice and the electoral franchise that most exercise the bosses. Precious causes, to be sure, but also agreeably costless ones.
It is when the definition of virtue expands to matters of tax, wage settlements and union rights that executives will regret making ethics as well as returns the measure of their work.
For a sense of how deep the corporate conscience runs, it is fair to inquire as to its whereabouts until roughly five minutes ago. Yes, the Muslim travel ban of 2017 provoked some executive dissent, most volubly in the tech sector. When Donald Trump telegraphed his refusal to abide by an electoral defeat — no bluff, as it turned out — some C-suites spoke up. In vivid style, Nike also stood by the athlete Colin Kaepernick after he took the knee against racism.
In the round, however, big business was a picture of docility throughout what was probably the most contentious presidency since the civil war. Even if the Capitol siege of January 6 really was a moral epiphany for business, tax cuts and deregulation bought an eerie silence until that point.
It is fanciful to think they will not achieve a similar effect as 2024 nears. Whether or not it is DeSantis, a Republican who goes into that election pledging to undo President Joe Biden's mooted corporate tax rise will not struggle for private-sector donors.
And none of this reckons with a turn in public sentiment against the cultural left before then.
Even now, it is hardly as if the party is clawing around for corporate cash. You would not know from the recent hubbub that companies as public-facing as T-Mobile filled Republican coffers in February, just one month after the siege.
It suits both sides in the alleged rift between the Grand Old Party and big business to play up its severity. The politicians gain some populist bona fides; brands endear themselves to a new White House and a generation of conscientious shoppers. There is sparring going on, which is not nothing. The mistake is to conflate it with authentic pugilism.
If there is nothing unfixable about the Republican link to business, there is nothing new about the Democratic one. As was his way, Gore Vidal overdid it when he described America's as a single-party system, starring the Property Party, "with two right wings: one Democratic, one Republican".
Still, to a degree that might be unique among the global centre-left, the Democrats are not just corporate-friendly but corporate-permeated. There is no UK Labour or French Socialist answer to the fluidity of movement between the party's administrations and high finance in particular.
Far from pulling off an epochal capture of corporate America, Biden's government is, in fact, less Wall Street-flavoured than Bill Clinton's or Barack Obama's. Business genuflects to his party and its mores because it is in power, not because of some historic realignment. Expect that loyalty to switch no later than the electorate's does.
Written by: Janan Ganesh
© Financial Times
