Originally published at: After attack ad, Toyota will stop backing Big Lie politicians | Boing Boing
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Well that was quick
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According to this article, in order of the size of donations the next biggest supporter of Congressional fascists is Koch Industries – no shaming them, not that TLP would anyhow. The scumbags at Reynolds American (a tobacco company) won’t be shamed, either.
Cigna insurance and AT&T are probably next up.
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We are actively listening to our stakeholders and, at this time, we have decided to stop contributing to those Members of Congress who contested the certification of certain states in the 2020 election.
Good decision, Toyota. Tell us when the contributions have actually stopped.
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Between this fuckery and squandering a golden opportunity to lead the market from hybrids to PHEV to BEV, my 10-ish year old Toyota is almost certainly the last one I will ever own.
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Since they are clearly motivated only by the PR aspect of being outed in public and the potential of lost revenue, and nothing to do with the principle of supporting the right thing, it’s hard to take this weaseling and backpedaling too seriously.
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I’ll believe them when it lasts for a meaningful length of time. They already promised it once and went back to donating.
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Weasels can be manipulated. We need to starve all of these corporations.
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Great news.
Who’s next?
There’s gotta be a list someplace. Companies should be afraid to be on this list.
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Wow. I’m glad to hear about this. I was seriously looking into buying either a Toyota or a Lexus. Might as well scratch that idea. I wonder what Honda/Acura’s donation list looks like.
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That is kinda my reaction… “so they say they will stop”. Who knows how many shell companies they have that will be donating their money still.
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This is the key. Say the right stuff, do the same old shitty things is a long standing corporate strategy for these kind of situations.
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This is good I guess, but let’s not forget how fucking deranged it is that a (foreign!) car company is allowed to give giant wads of cash to American politicians in the first place.
You can hyperfocus on the procedural details as much as you want, but the fact companies find it worth spending this money is empirical proof that the practice is corrupt.
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Yeah, like everyone is saying, at best they’ll just lay low for a few months and then go right back at it.
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The Japanese media isn’t reporting on this all that much (most of the Japanese language articles that I am seeing are just translations of articles from the foreign press), but the ones who are reporting on it are quick to point out that it was the overseas subsidiary of Toyota that made the donations. I don’t know if HQ was involved in these donation decisions, but they are certainly distancing themselves from it now.
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I didn’t mean to overemphasize the “foreign” part – in practice the US donors (like the Kochs) are probably more of a concern, and no one should be bribing sponsoring politicians – but that detail does highlight the insane lack of regulation. If North Korea, or al Qaeda, or anyone wanted to spend a billion dollars influencing an American election, they can do that completely legally.
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I bet Russia hasn’t had to spend nearly that much, and look at how well that worked out for them!
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Inevitable for OAN/Newsmax/Tucker to come out with:
"Toyota has declared itself the Official Democrat-Antifa Car."
They already had a PR problem explaining why theirs is the truck of choice for discriminating extremist groups:
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