On January 6, 2021, a man with a microphone in his hand, overlooking a crowd of inflamed followers carrying flags and paraphernalia of his movement, shouted at fever pitch: “Fight like hell. If you do not fight like hell, you will not have a country anymore.” He then urged them to walk down the main thoroughfare to take control of the seat of power of his country. While people started to fall away one by one to follow his cue, first a few and then soon the many, his consigliere reminded them from the speaker’s desk that it will be the all-decisive battle, “trial by combat”.
Two hours later the mob, armed with clubs and firearms, started to smash windows and doors of the US Capitol, making their way to the chambers and offices of representatives and senators, trashing what came their way, intend to draw blood and inflict death. The man who incited this violent putsch was the President of the United States, intent to take power denied to him at the ballot box by force.
Disturbing as this may have felt for a moment to Donald Trump’s paymasters, party loyalists and the indulgent media, it did not come as a surprise. During his campaign and four years in office, Trump had committed a mind-boggling series of misdeeds, ranging from the morally sickening to the legally wrong. Never before in US history had a president more brazenly abused the institutions of state for personal gain and to usurp unseemly power. Never has an elected president done more harm to the standing of their own country. While the government of Bush Jr had inflicted great harm to the world, Trump and his single-use acolytes have instigated an unprecedented act of national self-harm, scarring the US for generations to come.
In the heydays of the Soviet Union, state media ‒ and there was nothing else to inform the public – would portrait America as a place of unseen poverty, mass unemployment and human suffering. Queues in front of soup kitchens were filmed with gusto, not the richly staked shelves in supermarkets. Today’s dictators, from Erdogan to Putin to Xi Jinping do not have to lie anymore when they chuckle about the insanity of US democracy, stressing the advantages of their cynical control.
China has not only managed the pandemic better than any country in the West, is has, by instilling a dangerously nationalistic fervour into all classes of Han society, synchronised society to perfection. Freedom, this illusive idea, may well count little if it instils nothing but foolish conspiracy theories and obvious falsehoods.
As consumers and as investors we have a choice who we want to give our money
Putin, overseeing a country in economic stagnation and societal apathy, has gained status with ease, and so has Erdogan, who turns his country away from Ataturk’s secular, liberal ideas towards the concept of a new Turkish caliphate. Events like in Kyrgyzstan, where a mob carried a man from his prison cell to the presidency, look decidedly unspectacular, as do the murder of journalists and the killing of opponents at home and abroad. The US has become the leader of the unfree world, world champion in bullying and breaching of contracts, weaponising finance and trade.
Seventy-four million US citizens voted for a morally deranged ‘moron’, more votes than any candidate had ever garnered before, except the narrow winner Joe Biden. The majority of those voters believe that their victory has been stolen by a sinister group of paedophile Illuminati, intent to enslave them with microchips, debilitate them with vaccines and to relegate them to serfdom. Many of them do duty in the police, the army and national security services. The Trump-putsch failed by happenstance.
Pundits point to the complicity of polarising media and irresponsible social media platforms, foreign meddling even, and the unabashed, power-greedy polarisation of political parties. US conservatives, Trumpian to the man, had gleefully used a vote-winning clown to fashion the judiciary, to own without objection both legislative and executive powers. They certainly played an astoundingly immoral role. But I’d like to emphasise the decisive impact of corporate America to pay for this dire outcome.
When social media now ban a disgraced Trump from their platforms, it does not only come late but also in a dubious fashion, showing their absolute control over free speech. For four years they, as well as the legacy media, have milked Trumpism with gusto. Corporations which bankrolled conservative candidates and donated for the Trump campaign, had done so in the justified hope to buy into lower taxes and less regulation, to exclude competition and to muscle into foreign markets.
Many captains of industry were queuing for advisory roles and governmental positions lusting for the limelight and keen to solicit unfair advantage. Punitive tariffs were lashed out at foreign countries, friend and foe alike, and ever more embargoes imposed at the expense of domestic consumers. In some instances, single, well connected, niche industries were given preference over the economy at large.
Regulators and supervisory bodies were defanged to the detriment of consumer standards, the environment and public safety, just to further the interests of lobbing groups and party donors at an unprecedented scale. Trump’s support for white supremacists, his disdain for women and people of colour, his reign of hourly lies from the first to the last day of his presidency, never seemed to have shocked any of the industrialists padding his shoulder so benevolently.
It was the likes of Krupp and IG Farben in Germany who bankrolled the Nazis, one is forced to remember.
A lot is fussed about stakeholder capitalism lately, or what is known as ESG (Environment, Social and Governance)-responsible corporate behaviour. Corporations are now taken to task by investors and the public beyond their traditional duty of profitability, emphasising a wider responsibility towards em-ployees, suppliers, communities and the environment. The critical role they play for the functioning of democracy and the defence of liberal values is gladly overlooked.
Democracy and its values do not go hand in hand. Democracy in itself is not much more than a convention how to pass on power in a conflict-free manner – mostly. Values like belonging, being at home in a community, feeling safe or respected is fighting for a hearing with open tolerance, solidarity, equality and human dignity.
Only a rule-based order, guaranteed by multiple checks and balances, can achieve a satisfactory compromise. Very often we are steamrolled by the small print of seemingly democratic processes. Even anti-Semites and debased nationalists can be democratically elected, as we know from history. Freedom is brittle goods.
This is why as investors we should look hard if corporations are doing their best to further open, informed and fair discussions, or just cut a deal with the devil. As consumers and as investors we have a choice who we want to give our money. Those capitalists who make our globe less liveable don’t deserve it.
The purpose of this column is to broaden readers’ general financial knowledge and it should not be interpreted as presenting investment advice, or advice on the buying and selling of financial products.
andreas.weitzer@timesofmalta.com
Andreas Weitzer, independent journalist based in Malta