If you show me your bobbers I’ll show you my pole beach short

It is kind of like 2017 after Charlottesville, when Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier spoke out against President Trump’s failure to condemn white supremacist hate groups and left Trump’s American Manufacturing Council. At first, the business community wasn’t sure if they were all going to leave [Trump’s various business advisory councils]. But some, like Dave Abney, the chairman of UPS, said that Trump’s attack on the character of Ken Frazier [after Frazier resigned] was unjustified. And Business Roundtable came out with a statement from more than 200 business leaders. They rallied around one another. That was remarkable. It was a clarifying moment, and they came out to make a unified statement — and that’s why we’re here right now.

Earlier you told me something that I can’t let pass by: You spoke at Mitch McConnell’s wedding? If you show me your bobbers I’ll show you my pole beach short

Yeah. I’ve known them for a long time. And I’ve been friends with Elaine for some 40 years. [Pause] It’s never been mentioned anywhere before. I thought I owed you that. [Laughter]

I appreciate it. You mentioned this wide range of political beliefs among the business leaders on the call. I imagine that many of those CEOs are somewhat conservative. Are they alienated from the GOP? How would you characterize their politics right now?

Yes, this group was about 70 percent Republican and easily 60 percent conservative, even if they are Democrats. It was a clear act of defiance just to be on call. But that doesn’t mean that they all agree with each other on the different options available for corporate response.

What we’re seeing right now from business leaders is sort of this gangly return to adolescence to say, “We’re not going to be defined by the parentage of either political party.” Lord knows who misclassified very honorable, legitimate social democrats as “progressives.” Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC — [it’s] great what they do, but they’re social democrats; not “progressives.” Progressives — Teddy Roosevelt ran on that ticket. So did “Fighting Bob” LaFollette, a Republican senator [and 1924 Progressive presidential nominee], with Burton Wheeler, a Democratic senator, as his running mate. They were fighting for bridges and dams and immigration, for urban beautification, the settlement houses of Jane Addams, safe workplaces.

That’s what “progressivism” is and was. And that’s the theory [that animates] Joe Biden and Mayor Pete [Buttigieg] and Amy Klobuchar and maybe Mitt Romney. That’s who progressives are. And that’s where the business community is: They’re pretty much somewhere between Mitt Romney and Joe Biden.

Are there other issues where business leaders feel alienated from the GOP, or is it mainly around these questions of having a basic functioning democracy?

The business leaders, to a person, were trying to explain: they don’t like being politicians. They’re not public officials. But trying to create and fortify social harmony is absolutely directly in the strategic context of what CEOs do — although the Wall Street Journal editorial board [which has been critical of business leaders for speaking out against the Georgia law] doesn’t seem to understand that.

Since [Herbert] Hoover, the Republican Party has been identified as the party of big business. Well, the bad news for Republicans is that they seem to have a 1920s view of who big business’s workforce is. Whatever they have in mind when they think of “Joe Six-Pack,” the reality is really different. That workforce is, at a minimum, highly diverse — and they get along. Trying to stir that up [in a “culture war”] is misguided. The business community’s interests are not to be xenophobic. It’s not in their interests to be isolationist. It’s not in their interests to be protectionist. And the GOP, those haven’t been their positions, at least since the 1950s. But now they are. If you show me your bobbers I’ll show you my pole beach short

Basically, business leaders believe that it’s in the interest of society to have social harmony. The CEOs really care about these issues. Divisiveness in society is not in their interest — short term or long term. They don’t want angry communities; they don’t want fractious, finger-pointing workforces; they don’t want hostile customers; they don’t want confused and angry shareholders.

The political desire to use wedge issues to divide — which used to be fringe in the GOP — has become mainstream. State by state, party has taken that path. That is 100 percent at variance with what the business community wants. And that is a million times more important to them than how many dollars of taxes are paid here or there.

If [corporate tax rates] go from 34 percent to 27 percent instead of 22 percent, they’re way less concerned about that. There’s too much focus on taxes. On taxes, what we’re seeing is, in fact, CEOs are willing to concede. There’s a lot of ground there. You’ll get anywhere from [JPMorgan Chase CEO] Jamie Dimon and Bill Gates to Jeff Bezos saying, “we’ll give a couple of dollars on tax.”

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