New York Times: Inside Corporate America’s Frantic Response to the Georgia Voting Law

I’m enjoying this dynamic.

Progressive activists who are 8% of the American population are forcing multinational corporations to take polarizing stands on controversial social issues. They can’t do this without alienating populist and conservative voters and creating a backlash that pushes people in our direction.

New York Times:

“On March 11, Delta Air Lines dedicated a building at its Atlanta headquarters to Andrew Young, the civil rights leader and former mayor. At the ceremony, Mr. Young spoke of the restrictive voting rights bill that Republicans were rushing through the Georgia state legislature. Then, after the speeches, Mr. Young’s daughter, Andrea, a prominent activist herself, cornered Delta’s chief executive, Ed Bastian.

“I told him how important it was to oppose this law,” she said. …

That passive approach infuriated activists. In mid-March, protesters staged a “die in” at Coca-Cola’s museum. Bishop Reginald Jackson, an influential Atlanta pastor, took to the streets with a bullhorn and called for a boycott of Coca-Cola. Days later, activists massed at the Delta terminal at the Atlanta airport and called on Mr. Bastian to use his clout to “kill the bill.” Still, Mr. Bastian declined to say anything publicly. …

It was messy, but to many activists, it was progress. “Companies don’t exist in a vacuum,” said Stacey Abrams, who has worked for years to get out the Black vote in Georgia. “It’s going to take a national response by corporations to stop what happened in Georgia from happening in other states.” …”

Big Business always had a cozy relationship with the Republican Party. This is especially true here in the South where corporations like Delta have been subsidized by Southern state governments in an effort to promote economic development. The New South mania for development never ended.