Why Autocracy Doesn’t Pay

On January 6, 2021, as rioters swarmed the U.S. Capitol, one of America’s most powerful business lobbies—the National Association of Manufacturers—issued an extraordinary condemnation. 

Headlined “Manufacturers Call on Armed Thugs to Cease Violence at Capitol,” the statement by NAM President Jay Timmons decried the attack as “chaos” and “mob rule”: 

This is sedition and should be treated as such. The outgoing president incited violence in an attempt to retain power, and any elected leader defending him is violating their oath to the Constitution and rejecting democracy in favor of anarchy. Anyone indulging conspiracy theories to raise campaign dollars is complicit.

Timmons even went on to suggest that then-Vice President Mike Pence “seriously consider” invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Donald Trump from power. “This is not the vision of America that manufacturers believe in and work so hard to defend,” the statement continued. 

But since then? Crickets. 

Businesses have gone noticeably mum since Trump’s return to power in 2025. In fact, many of America’s most prominent executives have gone out of their way to accommodate the president, even as he has increasingly asserted control over their industries. A phalanx of billionaires paid court at Trump’s inauguration, while top companies—including Caterpillar, T-Mobile, and Altria—are helping to fund Trump’s ballroom. Other firms have acceded to their partial nationalization; US Steel, for instance, handed the administration a “golden share” in the company, essentially ceding control over its strategic direction to the government. 

The business community’s capitulation to Trump is baffling, given just how damaging Trump’s kleptocratic, autocratic policies have been for both individual businesses and the broader economy. For instance: 

Tariffs. Trump’s tariffs have raised costs for US businesses, depressed economic growth, and failed to create the manufacturing renaissance Trump promised. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that the Trump administration extracted $165 billion from businesses in illegal tariffs (for which rebates are still pending), and the Tax Foundation projects that tariffs imposed under legal authority will reduce long-term GDP by 0.2-0.3 percent. Manufacturing, meanwhile, lost 108,00 jobs in Trump’s first year back in office. Corruption. Trump has shamelessly blurred the line between his presidency and his family finances, earning at least $2.2 billion in 2025. Allies and donors win lucrative, no-bid contracts for government work, while foreign governments shower the president with “gifts.” Crony capitalism not only hurts the overwhelming majority of businesses that aren’t Trump family cronies, it’s also inefficient. At least one study finds that corruption leads to real declines in per capita GDP, with the biggest impacts in “autocracies and countries with low government effectiveness and rule of law.”  Uncertainty. Though Trump may revel in his unpredictability, businesses eschew it. Uncertainty makes long-term planning and investment difficult and increases risk. Nearly 43 percent of US CEOs said “uncertainty” was the top factor “expected to have the greatest negative impact on their business” in 2026, according to the Conference Board’s annual survey of CEOs. 

Certainly, some businesses aren’t speaking out because they’re benefiting from the current system. Many companies likely fear retaliation, while others are content to lobby on narrower issues, like tax and regulatory relief. 

Yet this failure of business to assert itself could accelerate the nation’s slide into authoritarianism, warns Daniella Ballou-Aares, founder and CEO of Leadership Now, a pro-democracy business coalition. “To think that large influential actors can stay out of things when democracy is threatened is an illusion, frankly,” she says. 

Founded in 2017, at the start of Trump’s first term, Leadership Now is perhaps the nation’s only bipartisan business group committed to defending democracy. The organization includes more than 400 business leaders nationwide, with chapters in eight states. It has taken a strong stand against election denialism and created a “democracy report card” for business leaders. It also recently debuted a “Business Plan for America,” which emphasizes the importance of political stability and the rule of law for economic growth. 

I interviewed Ballou-Aares about her organization’s impact for the Monthly podcast. (You can watch a preview on our Substack here or subscribe on Spotify here.) You’ll find her work at Leadership Now to be a refreshing antidote to whatever cynicism you may be feeling these days about the state of capitalism and the role of business in America. 

Don’t miss at the Monthly….

Can’t Democrats just get along? The implosion of Graham Platner’s candidacy in Maine, coupled with aggressive energy on the progressive left, has reopened the long-running internecine feud between the center and the left. It’s a fight that Politics Editor Bill Scher argues is completely unnecessary. Witness the success of Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is popular on his terms, and without picking fights with the left. “The name of the game when winning elections is addition, not subtraction, and that requires finding and elevating areas of common ground,” Bill writes. “While antsy pundits tend to glorify jumping on political land mines as acts of bravery, Ossoff is providing a master class in how to navigate around them and stay alive.” Read here. 

When history rhymes. Everyone middle-schooler learns about the caning of Charles Sumner on the Senate floor in the run-up to the Civil War. But as a new book argues, it’s the story of the perpetrator—South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks—that has the most to teach us about the current moment. As law professor Paul Finkelman writes in his review of Paul Quigley’s The Man Behind the Cane, the American South of Brooks’s era was intolerant and autocratic—with uncomfortable echoes of today. “Free speech was illegal, if that speech challenged slavery, racism, southern rights, or the self-proclaimed right of the South to leave the Union,” Finkelman writes. Though celebrated at home, Brooks’s shocking act of violence accelerated the vilification and rejection of slaveholder culture and the inevitable fall of the South. Most importantly, Finkelman argues, the episode confirmed that “speech, debate, and arguments are central to a democracy,” and that “violence and suppression are, in the end, the tools of dictators, kings, and slaveowners.” Read here. 

“Patriotic but disillusioned.” A new survey by the National Collaborative for Health Equity finds that many Americans are losing faith in the American Dream, even as they still long for national healing. More than half of Americans now say the American Dream is “out of reach,” and large majorities feel burdened by the costs of everyday living. As many as 81 percent of Americans, for instance, feel pressure from grocery costs, while 71 percent worry about housing. But as NCHE Executive Director Gail Christopher writes, more than 70 percent of Americans “remain hopeful that Americans can work through their differences and find lasting common ground.” That path to national healing begins in November. Read here. 

Higher ed eats its own. Dwindling enrollments and a shortage of 18-year-olds have sparked a war among colleges desperate to attract students. Community colleges are offering bachelor’s degrees, while four-year schools are providing workforce training. Both are encroaching on the territory K-12 with “dual enrollment.” “Some of this intensifying competition could benefit students and families, who are getting more choices, larger discounts, and other perks from colleges and universities that need to fill seats,” writes Jon Marcus in a piece published in partnership with The Hechinger Report. “In many cases, however, ‘turf wars’ and ‘mission creep’—as critics call this infighting—are heightening anxiety among students and families and preventing changes that could serve them.” Read here.

Plus…

Editor in Chief Paul Glastris writes about why right wing whiners are losing their battle against The Odyssey.  Can England’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, succeed where Keir Starmer failed? The University of Michigan’s John Austin and the University of Manchester’s Andy Westwood lay out the many, many challenges ahead.  Bill Scher also takes apart Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s equivocation on Israel’s right to exist. (El-Sayed’s position carries echoes of young Americans’ rising skepticism on this issue, which is deeply troubling.) 

Coda…

So far, “anti-woke” education is a bust… 

The EDULedger reports that a $3 million “anti-woke” education program at West Virginia University that launched this year has so far enrolled … one student. 

WVU’s Washington Center for Civics, Culture and Statesmanship was created last year by the state legislature “to address a perceived ‘crisis’ of ‘wokeness’ in America,” according to EDULedger. Center Director Patrick Lee Miller—who earns more than $300,000 a year—created 18 classes, including courses titled “The New Right,” and “Woke.” None of the classes are accredited, and the center’s launch follows massive budget cuts at WVU that saw the loss of 143 faculty jobs and 28 majors. “There is a question about whether or not this is the best use of public funds,” WVU political science professor Erik Herron told West Virginia Watch. 

A similar drama is unfolding at the University of Iowa’s Center of Intellectual Freedom, which had to postpone classes this spring due to lack of student interest. The Daily Iowan reported that the center’s “Political and Economic Institutions” class had enrolled just two students as of February, while another class had attracted four. 

In June, Governor Kim Reynolds signed legislation forcing students to take the center’s classes if they wanted to graduate—a requirement hilariously at odds with the center’s name. “If we are to be a Center for Intellectual Freedom, why is it mandatory?” a former Democratic member of the Iowa Senate told the Daily Iowan. 

Lawmakers in both states should have known these initiatives would fall flat. As Monthly Editor Nate Weisberg wrote last winter, Governor Ron DeSantis’s “anti-woke” makeover of the New College of Florida was an utter disaster, and the institution now faces closure. 

As always, thanks for reading, and please don’t forget to share, like and subscribe. 

Have a great week!

Anne Kim, Senior Editor

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