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Amazon's PAC is now backing Republicans who voted to nullify Trump's election loss [1]
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Date: 2022-10-27
The online buy-everything company Amazon, under the control of billionaire Jeff Bezos, was one of those companies that promised to cut support for lawmakers who voted to override the voting results of the 2020 presidential election. Judd Legum of Popular Information now reports that Amazon quietly resumed donations to those same lawmakers as of last September. Amazon's PAC donated $17,500 to nine House Republicans who voted to overturn the election results in September, even though none of those Republicans have expressed remorse for their votes or for promoting the hoax election claims that they used to justify their votes.
So, surprise, Amazon's vow to not support the reelection of the specific lawmakers who voted to nullify election results even after a violent mob of far-right insurrectionists attacked the U.S. Capitol didn't even last one election cycle. In the last months of the election, when candidates are looking for those last get-out-the-vote cash infusions, here comes Amazon to pad their wallets.
Jeff Bezos, it should be said, owns The Washington Post. That paper responded to the attempted coup with a new front-page warning: Democracy dies in darkness.
It's a bit weird for Bezos' other company to be funding that darkness, but it's what we've come to expect. American politics is incorrigibly corrupt; it is taken as a given that lawmakers are to cater to the requests of whoever gives them the most cash, and are free to retaliate against those who do not give them cash. Republicans broadly threatened such retaliations when corporations made their original "no seditionists" vows; many companies reversed themselves in a matter of months.
Amazon, in fact, appears to want special credit for holding out as long as it did. The Amazon Political Action Committee responded to an inquiry from Popular Information with a statement saying the suspension of support for election-erasing lawmakers was "not intended to be permanent," and that it has been "more than 21 months since that suspension."
My goodness, what integrity! Standing up to an attempt to erase United States democracy for 21 months? Going 21 months before attempting to boost the election chances of the exact same hoax-peddling seditionists who are still working to undermine U.S. elections today? Because violent attempted coup is, after all, a secondary concern to upcoming regulatory decisions that might cost one of the world's most dominant companies a few more dollars of profit.
It is hard to resist making sweet, sweet love to such a patriotic organization. The integrity of such a company is almost too much to bear. It makes us tingle with adoration.
Or, as Legum observes, suspending campaign donations until the point when lawmakers are most desperate for those donations "means there was no practical impact" to Amazon's pledge to begin with.
This really isn't hard, folks. Corporate America already has a history of bowing out after preferred candidates end up in prison, or are accused of sex crimes, or cross other lines that are already far beyond the sort of behavior that would get your average worker drone escorted from the company building posthaste. Yes, corporate bribery is terribly important, but there are already lines. The only question is whether attempting to nullify a constitutional election based on false propaganda is sufficiently corrupt for corporate America to want to bow out, and the answer is ... not really!
Fascist overthrow of government is, as it turns out, negotiable. Corporations are willing to consider it, depending on the tax ramifications.
Amazon wants credit for delaying cash payments to the enemies of democracy until the very end of the election cycle, then caving. Sure. Sure, let's all make sure we give them proper credit for that.
The 2022 midterms are just around the corner, and you sent us a ton of fantastic questions for The Downballot mailbag episode we promised this week, so we brought on Daily Kos Elections contributing editor Steve Singiser to help us answer them. Among the many topics we cover: which states are likely to report results slowly—and how will those results change over time; the House districts that look like key bellwethers for how the night might go, and which might offer surprises; why and how Democrats make the hard decisions on which races to triage; the top legislative chambers to keep an eye on; and plenty more!
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/27/2131472/-Amazon-s-PAC-is-now-backing-Republicans-who-voted-to-nullify-Trump-s-election-loss
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