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By the Editorial Board

Remember when Republicans would boldly stand up to any attempts to tell capitalists how to run their businesses? The GOP still claims to be the pro-business party, but you wouldnt know it from the way many in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail are harassing corporations for the sin of responding constructively to societys evolution on issues like climate change and LGBTQ rights.

As unnerving as it is to watch Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and ranking House Republicans attacking corporate America with all the fervor of 1960s anti-capitalism socialists, its a telling illustration of just how situational the partys once staunchly pro-corporate legacy has become.

Corporate America has to a large extent always reflected the societal mores of the nation at large. The pre-sexual-revolution, pre-Civil Rights era of corporate advertising (as dramatized, for example, in the cable TV series Mad Men) vigorously reinforced the stringent gender and racial roles widely accepted at the time until it became profitable for advertisers to recognize the cultural changes around them. Or at least unprofitable to ignore them.

Youve come a long way, baby, declared the iconic late 1960s ad campaign for Virginia Slims cigarettes. It sounds today like paternalism in service to a deadly habit, but it was nonetheless an example of fundamental evolution in how corporate America interacted with a changing society. Similarly, overtly racist corporate ad campaigns were commonplace until the Civil Rights movement rendered them bad for business.

Say what you will about Republican politicians of those bygone eras, but it generally wouldnt have occurred to them to suggest that big government should second-guess advertising or investment decisions being made in the boardrooms. The GOPs fervent hands-off approach to business regulation wasnt an entirely positive thing, especially in relation to, for example, workers rights and environmental issues. But it was a genuine principle that was consistently applied.

Where is that principle now?

The latest GOP anti-business antics DeSantis campaign against Disney for opposing his dont say gay law in Florida, Hawleys various attacks against corporate entities for supporting what he labels woke capitalism, and now pending House GOP committee hearings pushing back at climate-conscience corporate investing all represent the kind of big-government meddling in business decisions that would have horrified Republicans of a generation ago.

The irony is especially thick when you consider that the GOP today is also pursuing a free-speech crusade that seeks to protect First Amendment rights for people who spread toxic lies online but apparently not for corporations. This from the party that has vociferously supported the landmark 2010 case Citizens United v. FEC, which found that corporations have the same free-speech rights as individuals speech rights some of those same Republicans now seek to curtail.

To borrow from that old cigarette ad, society has come a long way from the days when people were automatically devalued based on their gender, their skin color or who they love. Corporations are merely reflecting that evolution along with growing acceptance of the science behind climate change analysis in their advertising, investments and other public interactions. Those corporations, apparently, have come further along than the political party that used to have their backs.

Views from the editorial board, opinions from guest and national columnists plus the latest letters from our readers.

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Editorial: Corporations are evolving with the times. Their former ... - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) offered up a head-spinning defense of white nationalists on Monday, saying hes against racism but that many of them just have different beliefs.

Tuberville, who has blocked hundreds of military promotions to protest the Pentagons abortion policy, was asked by CNNs Kaitlan Collins about comments he made in May when asked about white nationalists.

I call them Americans, he said at the time.

He didnt back down, saying hes against racism but believes white nationalists are just Americans and that the term is just a cover word for the Democrats now where they can use it to try to make people mad across the country, identity politics. Im totally against that.

Collins reminded him what the term actually means.

A white nationalist is someone who believes that the white race is superior to other races, she said.

Well, thats some peoples opinion, Tuberville replied, and again he defined a white nationalist as an American.

Its not an opinion; white nationalists are literally defined as one of a group of militant white people who espouse white supremacy and advocate enforced racial segregation, according to Merriam-Webster.

But Tuberville said theyre Americans who have different beliefs while repeating that hes totally against racism.

A white nationalist is racist, senator, Collins reminded him.

Well, thats your opinion, Tuberville said, as he did earlier. Thats your opinion.

(Story continues below video)

Tuberville has a history of racist rhetoric so much so that his own brother called him out over it.

Due to recent statements by him promoting racial stereotypes, white nationalism and other various controversial topics, I feel compelled to distance myself from his ignorant, hateful rants, musician Charles Tuberville wrote on Facebook in May. I DO NOT agree with any of the vile rhetoric coming out of his mouth.

Last year, the NAACP criticized him for flat out racist, ignorant and utterly sickening comments comparing Black people to criminals.

Story continues

Critics on Twitter called him out for his latest comments:

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Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville Slammed For Outrageous Defense Of White Nationalists - Yahoo News

On Tuesday, Republicans in North Carolina overrode Gov. Roy Coopers veto to pass a strict limit on bodily autonomy in the form of a 12-week abortion ban.

In addition to this new limit on abortion, the law extends the waiting period for people seeking abortions to 72 hours and puts onerous new rules on clinics. As intended, the net effect is to limit access to abortion and other reproductive health services to everyone but those with the time and resources to seek care outside the state.

North Carolina Republicans are obviously not the only ones fighting to ban, limit or restrict the right to bodily autonomy, whether abortion or gender-affirming health care for transgender people. All across the country, Republicans have passed laws to do exactly that wherever they have the power to do so, regardless of public opinion in their states or anywhere else. The war on bodily autonomy is a critical project for nearly the entire G.O.P., pursued with dedication by Republicans from the lowliest state legislator to the partys powerful functionaries on the Supreme Court.

You might even say that in the absence of a national leader with a coherent ideology and agenda, the actions of Republican-led states and legislatures provide the best guide to what the Republican Party wants to do and the best insight into the society it hopes to build.

I have already made note of the attack on bodily autonomy, part of a larger effort to restore traditional hierarchies of gender and sexuality. What else is on the Republican Partys agenda, if we use those states as our guide to the partys priorities?

There is the push to free business from the suffocating grasp of child labor laws. Republican lawmakers in Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri and Ohio have advanced legislation to make it easier for children as young as 14 to work more hours, work without a permit and be subjected to more dangerous working conditions. The reason to loosen child labor laws as a group of Wisconsin Republicans explained in a memo in support of a bill that would allow minors to serve alcohol at restaurants is to deal with a shortage of low-wage workers in those states.

There are other ways to solve this problem you could raise wages, for one but in addition to making life easier for the midsize-capitalist class that is the material backbone of Republican politics, freeing businesses to hire underage workers for otherwise adult jobs would undermine organized labor and public education, two btes noires of the conservative movement.

Elsewhere in the country, Republican-led legislatures are placing harsh limits on what teachers and other educators can say in the classroom about American history or the existence of L.G.B.T.Q. people. This week in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that bans discussion in general education courses at public institutions of theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political and economic inequities. He also signed a bill that prohibits state colleges and universities from spending on diversity, equity and inclusion programs beyond what is necessary to retain accreditation as educational institutions.

Nationwide, Republicans in at least 18 states have passed laws or imposed bans designed to keep discussion of racial discrimination, structural inequality and other divisive concepts out of classrooms and far away from students.

Last but certainly not least is the Republican effort to make civil society a shooting gallery. Since 2003, Republicans in 25 states have introduced and passed so-called constitutional carry laws, which allow residents to have concealed weapons in public without a permit. In most of those states, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, it is also legal to openly carry a firearm in public without a permit.

Republicans have also moved aggressively to expand the scope of stand your ground laws, which erode the longstanding duty to retreat in favor of a right to use deadly force in the face of perceived danger. These laws, which have been cited to defend shooters in countless cases, such as George Zimmerman in 2013, are associated with a moderate increase in firearm homicide rates, according to a 2022 study published in JAMA Network Open. Republicans, however, say they are necessary.

If someone tries to kill you, you should have the right to return fire and preserve your life, said Representative Matt Gaetz, who introduced a national stand your ground bill this month. Its time to reaffirm in law what exists in our Constitution and in the hearts of our fellow Americans, he added. We must abolish the legal duty of retreat everywhere.

It should be said as well that some Republicans want to protect gun manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits. Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee did just that this month after a shooting in Nashville killed six people, including three children, in March signing a bill that gives additional protections to the gun industry.

What should we make of all this? In his 1941 State of the Union address, Franklin Roosevelt said there was nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy and that he, along with the nation, looked forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. Famously, those freedoms were the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom of every person to worship God in his own way, the freedom from want and the freedom from fear. Those freedoms were the guiding lights of his New Deal, and they remained the guiding lights of his administration through the trials of World War II.

There are, I think, four freedoms we can glean from the Republican program.

There is the freedom to control to restrict the bodily autonomy of women and repress the existence of anyone who does not conform to traditional gender roles.

There is the freedom to exploit to allow the owners of business and capital to weaken labor and take advantage of workers as they see fit.

There is the freedom to censor to suppress ideas that challenge and threaten the ideologies of the ruling class.

And there is the freedom to menace to carry weapons wherever you please, to brandish them in public, to turn the right of self-defense into a right to threaten other people.

Roosevelts four freedoms were the building blocks of a humane society a social democratic aspiration for egalitarians then and now. These Republican freedoms are also building blocks not of a humane society but of a rigid and hierarchical one, in which you can either dominate or be dominated.

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Opinion | The Four Freedoms, According to Republicans - The New York Times

New election results suggest voters are mixed at best on the GOPs educational culture wars.

Tuesday nights school board elections in Pennsylvania and Oregon again showed how classrooms continue to be a front in the Republican Partys broader culture war, a battle it has pursued in states across the country with mixed results.

In an Oregon school district in the predominantly rural Clackamas County, where students have protested a recent onslaught of book bans, several parental rights candidates lost their bids for the school board. However, GOP-backed school board candidates in southern Pennsylvania who backed book bans and policies targeting trans students survived primary challenges and will advance to the November elections.

The races are part of Republicans national push to politicize once-sleepy school board races, using them as a vehicle to curb discussion of race and gender issues in the classroom and give parents more power over curriculums. Across the country, school board members backed by the GOP have banned seminal works of literature, from Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye to Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale, but not without backlash.

Nationally, parents have become increasingly worried about the GOPs book-banning push and have cooled somewhat on the curriculum concerns that dominate Republicans education platform. An April Fox News poll found that 77 percent of parents are extremely or very concerned about local school board book bans, an 11-point increase since May 2022. Though 73 percent of those polled remained anxious about what is taught in public schools, thats 7 points lower than last year. Other polls conducted in recent months show similar results. Actual election results also cast doubt on Republicans school-focused strategy: In Illinois and Wisconsin, a key swing state, school board candidates who ran on culture war issues largely failed in April.

That tracks with Tuesday nights losses for three parental rights candidates, including two incumbents, in Oregons Canby School District. A total of 36 books were recently removed from the school districts libraries following parental complaints about their descriptions of promiscuity, assault, and mature sexual content.

Incumbent Canby school board member Stefani Carlson promised more restrictions on content offered through school libraries as a pillar of her candidacy, as well as offering more transparency to parents in terms of classroom curriculum. I will continue working to remove inappropriate sexually explicit and obscene material, she wrote in a pamphlet distributed to the district. But voters instead backed the approach of her challenger, who promised to be a voice of reason dedicated to advancing the goals of the District without creating chaos.

The two other parental rights candidates, one of whom was explicitly backed by the Parents Rights in Education political action committee, advocated for increasing parents role in setting school curriculums. They also both lost.

But it wasnt all bad news for GOP-aligned school board candidates. In Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, GOP-endorsed candidates dominated their school board primaries just as the districts consider policies including trans athlete bans and additional restrictions on library books.

In the Warwick, Pennsylvania, school district, many of the GOP candidates were associated with the local Facebook group Warwick Parents for Change and the Lancaster County chapter of Moms for Liberty, groups that have been a vocal presence in local meetings in advocating for anti-trans policies and restrictions on library books. If GOP candidates ultimately win in Pennsylvanias Manheim Township district, they could consider a ban on trans student-athletes participating in sports teams that correspond to their gender identity that was previously under consideration. That ban already exists in the nearby Hempfield district, which has also voted in favor of banning books with sexually explicit content and where GOP candidates will also advance.

In 2021, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin showed how education can be a winning issue for Republicans, even among voters who have previously swung Democratic. He upset incumbent Democrat Terry McAuliffe in what has long been a blue state by capitalizing on parents frustrations with school closures during the pandemic and with how schools teach about race and racism. Youngkin campaigned on eliminating classroom discussion of critical race theory an academic framework that examines the role of racism in US culture and institutions.

Educational culture wars have become part of the Republican national playbook, and bans on critical race theory have proliferated across red states and have become a flashpoint in school board races. The GOP has since expanded its education wars to also include bans on the discussion of LGBTQ issues in the classroom, making it easier to ban books that discuss race and gender or criticize US history, preventing trans student-athletes from participating in school sports, injecting Christianity into public schools, and allowing parents to take their tax dollars away from public schools and put them toward private or charter schools through school choice programs.

Its not clear, however, that Republicans focus on education is continuing to pay dividends. In addition to suffering the losses in Pennsylvania and in Illinois and Wisconsin last month, 35 parental rights candidates were defeated in New York school races last year. That meant that many of them decided not to run again this year, with many seats going uncontested in Tuesdays school board elections in New York.

Excerpt from:
Why Republicans school board takeovers are faltering with voters - Vox.com

George Santos is far from the first member of Congress to be indicted while in office. Both chambers and both parties have endured their share of scandals. In 2005, for instance, F.B.I. agents discovered $90,000 hidden in the freezer of Representative William Jefferson, who was under investigation for bribery. He refused to step down, wound up losing his seat in the 2008 election, and was later sentenced to 13 years in prison. James Traficant was expelled from Congress in 2002 after being convicted of bribery and racketeering. Bob Ney resigned in 2006 because of his involvement in a federal bribery scandal.

But in one way, Mr. Santos is different from other members of Congress who have demonstrated moral failures, ethical failures, failures of judgment and blatant corruption and lawbreaking in office. What he did was to deceive the very voters who brought him to office in the first place, undermining the most basic level of trust between an electorate and a representative. These misdeeds erode the faith in the institution of Congress and the electoral system through which American democracy functions.

For that reason, House Republican leaders should have acted immediately to protect that system by allowing a vote to expel Mr. Santos and joining Democrats in removing him from office. Instead not wanting to lose Mr. Santoss crucial vote Speaker Kevin McCarthy pushed a measure to refer the matter to the House Ethics Committee, notorious for its glacial pace, and the House voted predictably along party lines on Wednesday afternoon to follow that guidance.

If the House doesnt reverse that vote under public pressure, its incumbent on the Ethics Committee to conduct a timely investigation and recommend expulsion to the full House, where a two-thirds vote will be required to send Mr. Santos back to Long Island.

Mr. Santos was arrested and arraigned in federal court last week on 13 criminal counts linked primarily to his 2022 House campaign. Mr. McCarthy and other members of the Republican leadership effectively shrugged, indicating that they would let the legal process play itself out, as the conferences chair, Elise Stefanik, put it.

In addition to expulsion, the Republican leaders have several official disciplinary measures they could pursue, such as a formal reprimand or censure, but so far, they have done little more than express concern. Mr. McCarthy has several tough legislative fights looming, including negotiations over the federal budget to avoid a government default, and Mr. Santoss removal might imperil the G.O.P.s slim majority. In effect, Mr. Santoss bad faith has made him indispensable.

His constituents believed he held certain qualifications and values, only to learn after Election Day that they had been deceived. Now they have no recourse until the next election.

The question, then, is whether House Republican leaders and other members are willing to risk their credibility for a con man, someone whose entire way of life his origin story, rsum, livelihood is based on a never-ending series of lies. Of course they should not be. They should have demonstrated to the American people that there is a minimum ethical standard for Congress and used the power of expulsion to enforce it. They should have explained to voters that their commitment to democracy and public trust goes beyond their partys political goals.

At least some Republican lawmakers recognize what is at stake and are speaking out. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah reiterated his view that Mr. Santos should do the honorable thing and step aside, saying, He should have resigned a long time ago. He is an embarrassment to our party. He is an embarrassment to the United States Congress.

Similarly, Anthony DEsposito and Mike Lawler, both representing districts in New York, are among several House Republicans advocating his resignation. Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas has gone a step further, calling for Mr. Santoss expulsion and a special election to replace him. The people of New Yorks 3rd district deserve a voice in Congress, he wrote on Twitter.

Mr. Gonzales gets at the heart of the matter. Mr. Santos has shown contempt for his constituents and for the electoral process. Mr. McCarthy and the other Republican House leaders owe Americans more.

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Opinion | George Santos Must Be Held Accountable by Republican Leaders - The New York Times