Most men of my generation know exactly what my headline is referencing: toward the end of the first “Godfather” movie, one of the Corleone family’s most loyal lieutenants, Sal Tessio, is caught trying to betray the new Boss (Michael Corleone) after the original Godfather Vito Corleone dies. When his treachery is discovered, Tessio says to another old pal in the family, “Tell Michael I always liked him. It was only business.”
That line has been quoted a million times since the movie came out. It captures a cold blooded, tougher than nails attitude that modern capitalism loves. Probably not coincidentally, “The Godfather” came out in the early 1970s, at about the same time of the circulation of the infamous Powell Memo to corporate leaders about building a pro-corporate political and intellectual infrastructure. It’s also when economist Milton Friedman’s declared that a business’ only obligation is to shareholder profits.
We can see where this philosophy has led us — into an economic marketplace dominated by massive monopolistic companies seeking to control more and more of not only the economy, but government and society.
Democrats over the last half century have too often been reluctant to challenge this economic system. Some Democrats have even embraced parts of this crony capitalism, supporting trade deals that corporate America loved even though they screwed over workers, bailing out banks that got too big to fail, but not working folks losing their homes, and walking away from antitrust enforcement.
The combination of giant predatory corporations and this soulless profits-before-people philosophy has created the greatest income inequality and concentration of wealth that our country has ever seen. Most Americans are feeling the impact, and getting angrier and angrier about it.
This poll from Navigator is just the latest in a long line of polls I have either seen or helped conduct myself showing the intense anger at corporate abuse of power. Elected officials ‘allowing waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars’ tied ‘protecting monopolies and large corporations that limit competition and price gouge consumers’ as being the top reason voters think inflation is happening.
The third ranked reason is election officials ‘allowing lobbyists and special interests to have more influence than ordinary people.’ Oil and gas companies, drug and health insurance companies, and Big Tech are seen as being the most involved in corruption. The poll also reports that “cracking down on price gouging and prosecuting corporate fraud are seen as the most effective ways to address corruption and lower costs.”
This anger is not new, but it has intensified over the many polls I have seen, as inflation is outpacing wage increases, and families are being hit at every turn by higher costs: groceries, gas prices, utility prices, housing costs, and junk fees from corporations in every industry.
It’s not about being anti-business, it’s about reining in corporate power.
Even with all this passion from voters, Democrats remain wary of being too hard on corporate America. Some of this is because of corporate contributions and/or the fear of wealthy super-PACs coming after them, but that is not all that is going on. Democrats don’t want to be seen as anti-business because of the complicated feelings Americans have about business as their employers, and providers of useful goods and services.
Here’s what the polling shows as the most effective way to talk about what is going on:
Champion small business as pillars of the community and an engine for economic growth. As much as they despise the corporate abuse of power and influence over our government, voters love small business. They see locally owned businesses as pillars of the community and essential to rebuilding healthy local economies. Democrats too often just pay lip service to small business, but we should be fully embracing a platform of helping small businesses to grow, and protecting them from the monopolistic practices of the biggest companies.
Praise the businesses that are doing right by their employees and the community. Businesses that are paying their employees good wages and giving them good benefits (especially those with unions who have a good relationship with the union), contributing to social services and the arts in the local area, and not cooperating with some of the worst aspects of the Trump regime like ICE should be lauded for all the good they are doing.
Make it clear that what you are fighting against on their behalf is corporate concentration of power and abuse of power. Democrats do not need to hold back on their attacks on corporate monopolies, corporate price gouging, and corporations exploiting their workers or trying to bust unions. The polling is clear: people are mad as hell, and they want politicians who will fight for them. If voters know you support small business and the businesses that are good community members, they will have no problem with you going all out populist in blaming bad corporate actors for what they are doing to people.
Focus on the Tech Titans
Big Tech is in the news right now. The bill to clear the way for crypto to have a free hand at taking over most of the financial industry just died an ugly death in the Senate because Trump and other crypto scammers got too greedy. Even Donald Trump’s Federal Trade Commission (along with 22 state AGs) is saying Amazon is screwing millions of small businesses.
The fight over data centers has exploded nationwide to become arguably one of the biggest issues in the 2026 election. AI execs are saying that their Frankenstein creation may be too dangerous to control soon and could wipeout humanity. More and more news articles exposing the total creepiness of the tech oligarchs are coming out, like this one in the Times. And there is a big, controversial documentary coming soon on Elon Musk from acclaimed filmmaker Alex Gibney.
Democrats: you literally cannot go too far in terms of telling the story about how tech oligarchs are hurting our communities. These people are comic book villains, every bit as bad as Enron execs, Bernie Madoff, and the 2008 robosigning scammers. They are the Epstein class personified (many of them in fact had close ties to Epstein). And everyone knows who they are – Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos are household names. You should be talking about them every day on the campaign trail, using the pictures taken of them at the Trump inaugural. There is no downside to being a champion of the working class willing to fight for them against these scumbags.
Don’t Be Shy
Democrats need to be talking about business on the campaign trail. Talk about small business and good guy companies in your state as the heroes of the story that you will fight for, and the Epstein Class of corporate CEOs who abuse their enormous wealth and power as the people you will be fighting against. Don’t pull back; don’t be mealy mouthed in telling this story.
One quick anecdote: when pollsters were running dial tests during President Biden’s second State of the Union speech, tracking what voters were thinking about what he was saying while he said it, he was mostly getting a great response. The dial was on the positive side for pretty much the whole speech, except for one time: when he had a couple of sentences praising some big corporations for some good initiative they had done. Voters were apparently too mad at corporate America to give them credit for some nice thing they had sponsored.
Democrats do not need to hold back. Voters are pissed off at corporations abusing their enormous power. We have a chance for a genuine realignment over the course of the 2026 and 2028 elections, if only Democrats seize the moment.