THE MORNING RANT: Ron DeSantis Separates Himself from Legacy GOP with Attack on “Corporatism”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has come out swinging since the Republican wipeout in the midterm elections. I hope this is because he’s laying the groundwork for a 2028 presidential bid, since he is one of the few national Republicans in tune with heartland Americans. Among the topics he is discussing is the problem of “corporatism,” and how the back-scratching, crony capitalism that exists between government and many corporations repels conservative voters, while also fueling the popularity of socialism among non-conservatives.

Here are some quotes from Gov. DeSantis, as documented in a NY Post article titled “DeSantis says ‘corporatist Republicans’ drive young voters toward socialism after GOP’s midterm disaster”:

“Young people have a very positive view of socialism compared to capitalism. The question is, why is that?”

“Some of it is the education in our universities. But I think a big part of that is, what they’re comparing is not free enterprise versus socialism. What they’re comparing is how government gets involved in business, and you have crony capitalism.”

“The best kind of indirect supporters of socialism are some of these corporatist Republicans who propagate these crony policies.”

“If it’s cronyism versus socialism, there’s going to be enough people who are going to choose socialism.”

Gov. DeSantis’ attack on corporatism is welcome and politically necessary.

I have been pounding on the issue of crony capitalism and corporate misbehavior for years, not because I’m anti-business, but because I’m anti-socialism. Like the great Malcolm Forbes (who embraced the nickname “The Capitalist Tool”), I am trying to shame companies that give capitalism a bad name, because they actually empower the enemies of economic freedom.

Some of the topics I’ve covered include:

Beverage/snack companies are dependent on SNAP benefits (food stamps) for more than 20% of their revenue. Along with grocery stores, they lobbied furiously against changes to eligible SNAP products, since they are so reliant on taxpayer money being redistributed to them through the SNAP program. (“PepsiCo [Frito Lay] Snack Sales Decline as SNAP Restrictions Kick In” - 8/07/2026)

The “EV Transition” was largely an effort by various levels of government to redistribute wealth to EV manufacturers. I have written many articles documenting the incentives, mandates, federal rebates, regulatory credits, etc. that favored Rivian, Tesla, and other EV manufacturers at the expense of taxpayers not even purchasing those products.

“Pro-business” governors like Brian Kemp of Georgia flushed billions of taxpayer dollars into failed or failing EV-related ventures. These included $2 billion to Hyundai to build an EV assembly plant, $1.5 billion to Rivian for a plant that was never built, and $300 million to SK for a battery manufacturing plant that could not support the jobs it promised. The government redistribution of wealth from working people to favored corporations is neither capitalism nor free market economics. I prefer to call it venture communism.

Regarding data centers, one reason I believe there is such public opposition is that the public doesn’t trust elected officials not to provide data centers with taxpayer-subsidized utilities and tax abatements. I absolutely support data center construction so long as there is no crony capitalism involved, but it is understandable that voters with empty wallets are skeptical, especially since so many early data center proposals demanded taxpayer subsidization.

The problem with corporate behavior today isn’t just the crony capitalism, it’s also the morally bankrupt ethos that has become mainstream in corporations.

Prominently, this includes the embrace of what is effectively chattel labor. It can be in the form of foreign, low-paid, H-1B labor who can’t otherwise compete in the U.S. job market, or it may be subcontractors using off-the-books, illegal aliens as a source of untaxed and unregulated labor. I have documented multiple examples where subcontracted illegal laborers are living in slave-like conditions in the United States. Corporate America just winks at these abuses, then pawns off the cost of healthcare and other social services to taxpayers.

Even if not illegal, there are too many examples of executives looting their companies by taking short-term actions that enrich themselves but harm the company’s employees and shareholders. As an example, in an October 2025 piece titled “Unhelpful in the Battle Against Socialism’s Growing Appeal: Sherwin Williams Eliminates Employees’ 401(k) Match Amidst Stock Buybacks and Increased CEO Compensation,” I documented how Sherwin Williams:

• Eliminated the company’s 401k matching program, “conserving” $165 million of cash.

• At the same time, it increased the CEO’s compensation to $12.9 million, a 28% increase.

• This was also while it flushed away $892 million of its cash on stock buybacks, to prop up the stock price upon which executive bonuses are based.

This was not illegal, but it was despicable.

There are so many more examples. Be it Panera, or MGM, or other corporations, I keep pointing out that a toxic business school strategy has taken hold in which these practices are employed:

• Customers are “revenue-mined” with new and outrageous charges that produce a short-term boost in sales.

• Headcount and customer service are slashed to reduce labor expense, giving a short-term boost to operating profit.

• Cheapening their product with reductions in quality and/or size, producing a short-term boost in gross profit.

These actions drive away customers and do not create wealth. Rather, they are the actions of corporate climbers who made it to the C-suites and are now extracting the wealth that others created. As I wrote in a piece titled “’Financialization of All the Things’ is Parasitism, not Capitalism”:

In my opinion, the “financialization-of-all-the-things” is a form of parasitism that does not create wealth, rather it serves to extract the accumulated wealth from entities where wealth has previously been created. Those engaging in “financialism” are the corporate world’s version of tapeworms and ticks.

It’s also despicable when large corporations engage in unethical behavior to harm small businesses. In a recent piece that documented how counterfeit goods are a core product of Amazon’s business model, I wrote, “When a major corporation winks at its platform being used for the counterfeit sale of legitimate small businesses’ products, there is not a ‘magic hand’ of supply and demand at work. Rather, it is a form of theft from the legitimate small businesses.”

Thank you, Ron DeSantis. As pro-free enterprise patriots fighting the siren song of socialism, it is imperative that the conservative movement tackles the cancer of corporatism and unethical corporate behavior.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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