Editor's Note: Steve Schmidt is one of the founding members of the Lincoln Project. He is a communications and public affairs strategist who has worked on several Republican campaigns, including John McCain's 2008 bid for the White House, and he is now a regular political contributor to MSNBC. On Sunday, Schmidt delivered a warning to corporate entities that donate to pro-autocratic legislators over a series of 7 tweets. MaxNewsToday has assembled this thread and reprinted it as one easy-to-read op-ed for our ongoing segment, Schmidt Storm. It has been edited for grammar and clarity. Here is a question for corporate America. How many large corporations have signed statements in support of Black Lives Matter and expressed goals around increasing racial diversity? How many millions of dollars have some of those very same companies donated to political entities that have funded the very senators and members of Congress that are now engaged in an effort to throw out millions of Black votes for the purposes of keeping a president, who lost the election, in the White House? How many companies have pumped millions of dollars into entities controlled by Kevin McCarthy? The Lincoln Project is getting organized for this fight. We will do our best to bring companies, firms, agencies, Boards of Directors, CEO’s, senior management and trade associations into the sunlight on these issues. We will seek to strangle the money flow to the entities that have declared war on American democracy and sought to bring Jim Crow disenfranchisement to our fellow Americans. We will run targeted campaigns to foment employee rebellions and shareholder revolts. Most companies have extremely low pain tolerances. We will inflict as much public pain as possible around every entity that funds the U.S. autocratic coalition. The Lincoln Project is going to reimagine corporate pressure campaigns. There will be accountability imposed on bad actors in the public square. The First Amendment will be our sword and our shield. We will use it to strike at the unholy alliance that has cynically fueled this autocratic disgrace. The pro-democracy side of this fight does not need to prove its virtue through the gentle treatment of our autocratic enemies. They are not opponents. They have declared war on American democracy and have betrayed the foundational ideas and ideals of the country. There is no middle ground between freedom and autocracy. Everyone will need to choose their side. The Lincoln Project has chosen ours.
Comments