Donald Trump’s populism is turning off corporate donors

“GO WOKE, GO broke,” intone Republicans fed up with socially aware American firms. But it is the politicians who are paying for their own ideological zeal. In 2000 and 2004 corporate political-action committees (PACs) gave them twice as much as they gave Democrats. After divvying up donations nearly evenly between the two parties in 2008 (perhaps thanks to a charismatic newcomer named Barack Obama), in 2012 and 2016 they favoured Republican candidates again, by a factor of nearly two to one. Company bosses, too, preferred conservatives. A paper in 2019 found that between 2000 and 2017 CEOs of firms in the S&P 1500 index directed two-thirds of their giving to the right.