Not content to throw his weight around to transform the entire energy industry, Larry Fink has now turned his attention to altering the political system.
The CEO of top finance firm BlackRock, which reportedly controls more than $9 trillion in assets, has developed a reputation for progressive agenda pressure tactics against the companies they invest in – most recognizably on the issue of climate change, but also on social issues related to race and gender. Fink likes to write open letters to CEOs and board members in which he prods and threatens their corporations to do things like “divest” from fossil fuels (even if that is their core business) and report hypothetical “risks” from the effects of global warming. Those who fail to comply can find BlackRock potentially voting against renewal of their directorships, or worse.
But Fink is proving to be just another two-bit hypocrite “woke” chief executive, like so many others of Fortune 500-type companies, who live their lives in fear of Blue-Checkmark Twitter mobs and the lazy, slavish progressive media who get their daily story ideas in chunks of 280 characters.
Fink – probably getting bored with the climate change issue – decided last week to weigh in last week on the new Georgia election integrity law that the legacy media has lied about for weeks. After the 2020 election cycle showed massive amounts of unaccountable ballots caught on video being counted in the middle of the night, where no one except security cameras were watching – and where unmonitored ballot drop boxes proliferated, and as unverified mail-in ballots poured in – the state legislature decided the Peach State needed to keep an eye on its vote procedures a little better.
So lawmakers implemented things like identification requirements in order to absentee vote, which has been called “racist” by progressives like President Joe Biden because they think black people are incapable of obtaining such documents.
Inspired by their new non-Trump president, and pressured by leftist shakedown agitators, corporate CEOs – most prominently from Atlanta-based Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines — have issued condemnation statements about the unfairness of the law, saying stupid things like “voting should be easy” and that the measure “doesn’t match our company values,” while ignoring the law’s details like expanded early voting hours and absentee voting with no excuse needed, unlike previously.
But the facts don’t matter when you can virtue-signal on social media, and Fink is a master at hollow grandstanding, as his own statement on the Georgia law showed:
Equal access to voting is the very foundation of American democracy. While BlackRock appreciates the importance of maintaining election integrity and transparency, these should not be used to restrict equal access to the polls. BlackRock is concerned about efforts that could limit access to the ballot for anyone. Voting should be easy and accessible for ALL eligible voters. Voting is not just a right, but a vital component of civil activity. We should encourage all eligible voters to play this essential role in our democracy.
You’ll notice that Fink – as with other corporate CEOs who issued similar statements – failed to address any specifics of the law. That’s because it’s a common-sense measure. But instead the vacuous Fink belched false insinuations that the law denied “equal access” and “rights.”
Meanwhile Fink and his fellow outrage-minded CEOs fail to address election laws in other states where they operate, which happen to have more stringent requirements than Georgia. According to Ballotpedia:
As of December 2020, 35 states enforced (or were scheduled to begin enforcing) voter identification requirements. A total of 20 states required voters to present photo identification at the polls; the remainder accepted other forms of identification. Valid forms of identification differ by state.
Also like Coca-Cola and Delta (and others), BlackRock has a hypocrisy problem since they all have extensive, lucrative operations in the brutal, oppressive dictatorship of China – where elections are a complete sham. As Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida tweeted at Delta, after CEO Ed Bastian criticized the Georgia law: “You are business partners with the Communist Party of #China. When can we expect your letter saying that their ongoing genocide in #Xinjiang is ‘unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values’??? #WokeCorporateHypocrites.”
As National Legal and Policy Center has reported for a few years now, BlackRock and Fink like to act like bullies, except when it comes to China. The firm is invested in well over 100 Chinese-government controlled companies listed on American stock exchanges, yet no tweets or statements have been forthcoming about voting rights, human rights, or even rights to not be silenced or tortured.
Instead we get grandstanding about Georgia.
There’s nothing special or principled about being the CEO of a U.S. company any more. All it takes are billions of dollars, an empty suit, and disgust from middle America, and you could be one too.