Good morning.
Is attacking “woke CEOs” a winning political tactic? Two Republican contenders for the U.S. presidency—Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy—clearly think so. But early evidence suggests they may be miscalculating. Both candidates have toned done their anti-corporate rhetoric of late. And a recent New York Times poll found Republicans favored a “law and order candidate” over a “candidate who focuses on ‘woke’ ideology” by margins of two to one.
In a recent interview with Margaret Hoover on the PBS show "Firing Line," Ramaswamy launched into his trademark attack on “stakeholder capitalism” as a “perversion of how a democratic society is supposed to work.” Companies pushing measures to address climate change and racial justice, he said, “blur the boundary between our civic space and our space as capitalists. We don’t want capitalism and democracy sharing the same bed. We need a clean divorce.”
That certainly fits classical economic history. But as many polls have shown, Americans trust CEOs more than they trust politicians—or, at least, distrust them less. The argument that CEOs should leave tough issues like climate change and racial justice to government—which Ramaswamy and others deride as being overtaken by the “deep state”—is hardly likely to excite GOP voters. That’s why, I suspect, attacks on CEOs are subsiding… and why CEOs are lying low until they do.
More news below. And read how even Zoom now is trying to get workers back to the office, while workers in the U.S. continue to resist.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
