Leadership Now Project’s Post

Collision Course: The Risks Companies Face When Their Political Spending and Core Values Conflict and How To Address Them was published in 2018 by The Center for Political Accountability. This report takes an in-depth look at the consequences of political spending by the largest US public companies over the past decade. It examines how companies' corporate political spending often conflicts with their publicly stated values and the challenges this creates in today's hyper-polarized environment. You can read the report at the following link: https://lnkd.in/dwK23-Ms

As the presidential race nears its end next week, the most notable public sound from many CEOs and businesses on the election has been silence — and Donald Trump’s camp is increasingly interpreting that as a sign that corporate America may be preparing for him to win. New reports show that top business leaders, including Silicon Valley heavyweights, have reached out to the former president, seemingly looking to rebuild relations and protect their businesses if Trump defeats Vice President Kamala Harris. Business leaders are privately discussing how to prepare for a Trump return. Attendees at a gathering last week of the Business Council, an invite-only association of CEOs, talked about steps to take in case Trump goes after perceived enemies, according to The Washington Post. “I’ve told CEOs to engage as fast as possible because the clock is ticking,” an unidentified Trump adviser told The Post. “If you’re somebody who has endorsed Harris, and we’ve never heard from you at any point until after the election, you’ve got an uphill battle.” Big Tech leaders are among those trying to reboot relations. In recent weeks, Trump has said that he has spoken with Tim Cook of Apple and Sundar Pichai of Alphabet. He has also heard from Mark Zuckerberg, and CNN adds that Andy Jassy of Amazon has reached out. The reason for such outreach is clear, Trump associates told CNN. Trump has gone after many of their companies and re-establishing relations is at the least a hedge in case he wins next week. (An unidentified source told CNN that Jassy’s call, made at the company’s request, was a general exchange of pleasantries.) A reminder of where things stand.  The Times’s poll tracker shows Vice President Harris with just a 1-point lead on Trump, and the two candidates splitting the seven battleground states. But even the suggestion of staying neutral is drawing blowback. The decision by The Washington Post last week to not endorse a presidential candidate was condemned by current and former stars at the newspaper, including Marty Baron, its former editor, and Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The Times reports that the decision against endorsing was made by Jeff Bezos, who owns The Post, and came despite editorial writers having already drafted an endorsement of Harris. Some critics of the decision questioned whether Bezos’s other business interests were behind the move. “It looks to me more like a hedge than a confident prediction that he thinks Trump will win,” Lionel Barber, a former editor of the Financial Times, told DealBook. The challenge is that he is a billionaire businessman who owns a newspaper, “and they are in the political arena every day.”

Big Media's Double Standard: In this evening's Presidential Debate, Harris will no doubt show her superior knowledge & experience in proving that her Democratic economic policies/ plans will best benefit the most number of Americans and the environment. But we probabaly can expect more critical scrutiny of Harris than of Trump from big news media organizations - because this has been the pattern so far. So far, neutral analysts agree, most big corporate news media organizations have given Trump 'a pass' - expressing far too little scrutiny - regarding his mindless meandering speeches and his destructive policy proposals. This is because the wealthy owners & major shareholders of the biggest news media companies generally favor GOP anti-regulatory & regressive taxation policies. #MediaBias #PresidentialDebate #CorporateMedia ------- 10 September, 2024 ------

Interesting Op-Ed, but ultimately a waste of ink. Trump is a criminal, pathological liar, & malignant megalomaniac who would never stop to consider the truths stated in the Op-Ed. "Trump, 78, has been on the political stage for eight years marked by chaos, corruption, and incivility. Why go back to that? . . . Trump told more than 30 lies during the debate to go with the more than 30,000 mistruths told during his four years as president. He dodged the CNN moderators’ questions, took no responsibility for his actions, and blamed others, mainly Biden, for everything that is wrong in the world. . . . After scheming to overturn the 2020 election, Trump refused to say if he would accept the results of the 2024 election. Unless, of course, he wins. . . . Trump attacks the military. He denigrates the Justice Department and judges. He belittles the FBI and the CIA. He picks fights with allies and cozies up to dictators." The Editorial Board should have directed the Op-Ed at the GOP Executive Committee. Although I must admit that it is only fractionally more liken to listen to reason & truth than Trump. #voteblue #savedemocracy #savetheenvironment #savetheeconomy https://lnkd.in/gzFdY6Cd

Danielle Pletka critiques U.S. leadership, focusing on Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump. She highlights the insider knowledge in Washington D.C., using it to discuss Biden's alleged cognitive decline and leadership inadequacies, citing a Wall Street Journal article that many agree with despite partisan defenses of his capabilities. Pletka also targets Trump, noting his controversial actions, character flaws, and the blind loyalty of his enablers. She explores the repercussions of either leader's potential re-election, foreseeing Biden as a lame duck president, undermined by his administration and a Republican Senate, while predicting a Trump second term might stray further from seasoned advice towards yes-men, risking erratic governance. Pletka paints a bleak picture of the electoral options, questioning Biden's mental state and Trump's ethics, alongside other flawed candidates. She implies voters might choose the known over the uncertain, foreseeing a preference for openly flawed candidates. Her commentary sharpens the focus on profound issues in American politics, stressing that the forthcoming election is more about choosing the least harmful leader than the best one, urging voters to approach with full awareness of the stakes. Danielle Pletka's incisive critique, while focusing on the United States' leadership conundrum, underscores a broader, global democratic dilemma. The stark depiction of choosing between lesser evils be it due to cognitive decline, questionable moral compasses, or outright incompetence is not unique to the U.S. political landscape. Worldwide, voters often feel forced to choose the "lesser evil" rather than being inspired by genuine leadership. This dissatisfaction with political options is common across various systems and is more acute in some places. People swing between far-right and far-left, with centrists struggling to compete against bolder, yet often simplistic or extreme viewpoints. Corruption and incompetence further exacerbate this issue, diluting trust in potential leadership. Often, political arenas are run by self-serving figures, making voters doubtful of true leadership. This fuels disillusionment, leading to apathy or resentment and enabling demagogues who thrive on general discontent. Pletka's observations, through the lens of the American experience, resonate on an international scale, highlighting a critical challenge to modern democracies worldwide. The situation calls for urgent global political rejuvenation, advocating for reforms that emphasize integrity and real choices for voters. It demands a shift in democracy to nurture trust and optimism, steering away from disillusionment to a more hopeful and inclusive future. #globalaffairs #usa #politics #elections2024 #biden #trump #democracy Substack Danielle Pletka

Probably the biggest failure of reporting and punditry of this new century is the mainstream media failing to see the 2024 presidential election as a rematch between Trump and Biden. For many months the conventional wisdom has been that Trump's legal problems would sink him. That the combination of January 6th and all of his criminal and civil court cases would so tarnish him with voters that even his most ardent supporters would desert him. As I have been reminding people, a day doesn't go by where the Washington Post or CNN doesn't have a negative story about Trump. The bashing has been constant. If it isn't about something new he said, then it is about the status of one or more of his legal troubles. As Holman Jenkins writes in his column today in the WSJ, there probably isn't a household in America where those living there couldn't name a half-dozen negative media narratives about Trump. Why? Because if you missed one of them the first time it was mentioned, then don't worry. It would be mentioned 100 times more from a half-dozen sources. You couldn't miss if you tried. But, if the theory of the "Big Lie" works. That is, no matter how inaccurate or illogical, if something is repeated often enough, people will believe it. How could Trump's political come back exist in a universe where his press coverage was essentially a black hole swallowing everything around it so no light could escape its pull? Perhaps, sticking with the scientific metaphor, it is matter versus anti-matter. Unlike every other politician who ever aspired to the presidency, Trump fought back as hard as the media fought him. And he did so with humor, self-confidence, and credibility. His enemies in the press where so over the top, and so unfair, that it finally turned people off and instead of them discrediting him, they discredited themselves. Returning to Trump's very real legal problems, many of which were cheered on by Biden, this too seems to have backfired. While all of Trump's legal problems involve things out in the open. Those who tried to entrap him in lawfare operated behind the scenes in ways that the public interpreted as sneaky, unfair, and contrived. Hence, like him or not, as Jenkins writes, he appears before the voters as "authentic" and "transparent." One Long Island Newsday headline trying to turn a positive into a negative calling it "transparency you can see through." Well frankly, after years of the government lying to us about Covid among many other lies they have been caught in, what voter isn't ready for a little honesty and transparency. Especially when the current president spends much of his time in hiding, and rarely speaks to the press or the American people. A man who appears to be visibly aging and declining before our very eyes, but who claims he is as sharp as ever. Compared to Biden's cynical campaign, Trump appears heroic. Read my past essays, you will see it is what I have been telling you all along.

Politics Meets Business: Deloitte Faces Backlash After Leaked Message Recent events highlight the blurred lines between politics and business. The Washington Post's September 27 article revealed JD Vance's private 2020 message criticizing Trump's economic agenda, sparking a swift response from Trump Jr. He called out Deloitte, the employer of the individual who leaked Vance's message, suggesting they should lose their government contracts. Deloitte receives approximately $3 billion annually from federal agencies, including the Department of Defense and Homeland Security ¹. This incident raises questions about the potential consequences of mixing politics and business. Ethics experts warn that such threats could have a chilling effect on private sector employees' freedom of speech. Federal contracting laws prohibit cutting off businesses due to workers' private political views. What are your thoughts on this intersection of politics and business? #Deloitte #Election2024 #GovernmentContracting #FreeSpeech https://lnkd.in/eBWGX8ye

Regardless who wins or what side of the aisle you're on, join the EY post-election webcast tomorrow (11/6) for insights on the new political dynamics that will shape the legislative and regulatory environment in the coming years: https://lnkd.in/gPRr7qZE

⭐Fellow Spotlight⭐ “Since June 16, 2015, the day that Donald Trump…announced his run for the presidency, the American body politic has struggled to figure out how to treat him, his rhetoric, and the threat he poses to our system of government.” Keseb Democracy Fellow Farbod Faraji’s organization Protect Democracy has just released “The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025,” a report that looks at authoritarian president Donald Trump’s “Promises, Powers, and Plans” to draw lessons and recommendations to prepare to protect American democracy against unconstitutional and authoritarian actions. These recommendations include: 1. Create pro-democracy coalitions before the crisis arrives. 2. Take anti-democratic ideas and promises seriously. 3. Keep a broad pro-democracy movement united against the acute, big-picture autocratic danger. 4. Support Republicans that stand firm for democratic institutions. 5. Rally around non-partisan, independent public servants.  6. Uphold the rule of law and democratic institutions, and always repudiate violence. 7. Protect the first targets, and arrange now to advocate for the most vulnerable. 8. Evaluate security at the community, household, and personal level.  9. Work to protect free and fair elections in 2026 and 2028. 10. Continue building the democracy of tomorrow. To read the full report, visit https://lnkd.in/e8drAWyd #democracy #democracyinnovator #democracychampion #democracyfellow

Trump’s cabinet appointments will affect everyone and every business. If Trump’s current candidates get through the Senate (by confirmation or by the Senate abdicating and allowing recess appointments), we would have a far-right extremist as Secretary of State, a Kremlin appologist as head of US intelligence, a lawless Attorney General, an oil aficionado as head of the interior (who may be one of the more sane of the appointments), etc. We can expect distancing from our allies, flirtations with despots, tariffs squeezing the middle class along with cuts to established benefits, inconsistent application of laws along ideological or party lines (like DeSantis' treatment of Disney on a national scale), ending of funding for ongoing projects all over the country, no help for people and businesses affected by repeated catastrophic weather events, and no preparation for pandemics. Follow legislation and executive orders closely as they will affect everyone. https://lnkd.in/eA4YffEA