After many years of abuse, conservatives have finally become tired of corporations pushing wokeness down our throats. As a result, effective economic boycotts have been launched.
This can be verified by asking any of the corporate executives behind the misguided marketing decisions of Target, Kohl’s, Bud Light, and many other formerly successful brands. Incredibly, despite billions of dollars of losses, corporations are continuing this foolhardy endeavor.
In corporate America, some of the biggest proponents of wokeness are in the powerful pharmaceutical industry. Big Pharma proudly supports left-wing causes and imposes radical indoctrination on its employees. Its new-found woke image may explain why Democrats have become so eager to support the industry’s legislative agenda.
The drug industry’s support for the progressive agenda comes in many forms. The most evident example can be discovered by reviewing the list of Big Pharma’s political donations.
In the 2020 presidential race, Joe Biden received far more contributions from the drug industry than Donald Trump. In fact, Biden’s 2020 haul made him the record-holder for Big Pharma donations of any past or current member of Congress. The industry does not restrict its generosity just to Biden. Big Pharma has donated millions of dollars to Democrats in recent election cycles.
The pharmaceutical industry obviously does not limit their political activity to campaign contributions. Big Pharma is also actively boosting controversial transgender surgeries for children.
Pfizer and PhRMA (the industry’s trade association) fund the Healthcare Equity Index (HEI). This index, crafted by the left-wing Human Rights Campaign, rates health systems across America on how they provide permanent, gender-altering drugs and surgeries to children.
The HEI index is a tool used by the pharmaceutical industry to pressure hospitals to accept gender ideology. It is funded by Big Pharma, which also reaps huge profits from transgender “treatments.” This disturbing relationship led to an investigation from the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Big Pharma is also a major proponent of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) and “Environmental, Social & Governance” (ESG) policies. Both terms describe left-wing practices that now dominate corporate hiring and training.
PhRMA has an entire webpage dedicated to its DEI commitment, where it states, “we believe that building a more just and equitable health care system must include a focus on increasing diverse talent to drive real change within the industry.” In addition, drug companies have grown in their obsession with ESG in recent years. The mention of this woke practice more than tripled in the official filings of drug producers between 2016 and 2021.
Among other buzzwords that reflect the goals of this agenda, a key term for pharmaceutical companies pushing these policies is “sustainability.” According to one analysis of Big Pharma’s hiring practices, the number of job openings with the word “sustainability” in the title increased an astounding 33 times between 2019 and 2022.
This sharp ideological shift to the far-left has coincided with Democrats getting cozier with an industry it once railed against. For example, Democrats were eager to advocate for Big Pharma’s COVID agenda at the federal and state levels. Many Democrats even wanted to censor criticism of Big Pharma’s COVID vaccines as a demonstration of their new-found loyalty to an industry contributing to progressive candidates and supporting progressive policies.
Even as the COVID hysteria has subsided, this cozy relationship between Democrats and PhRMA has continued to grow. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), once the fiercest critic of the industry, is now pushing legislation to benefit Big Pharma.
Sanders is advocating for an insulin price cap bill that curiously shields drug manufacturers from shouldering the cost. He’s also backing a bill that would curtail pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), the third-party companies that negotiate for lower costs for individual consumers.
Big Pharma likes to transfer the blame for skyrocketing drug costs to PBMs, which is why the industry supports the bill. If passed, the legislation will allocate more power to PhRMA over the healthcare industry. It will also increase the profits of pharmaceutical companies. Unfortunately, the legislation may pass due to staunch support from Sanders, and other progressive Democrats.
While the drug industry’s new woke image has created strong alliances with progressive Democrats, hard-working Americans should not be fooled. Big Pharma’s foremost goal is to maximize profits by any means necessary.
In 2022, revenues for the pharmaceutical industry, worldwide, totaled $1.48 trillion, an amount that has been steadily increasing for many years. Of the worldwide pharmaceutical market, the United States has the largest share at 42.6%, approximately 600% larger than China, the country that ranks second on the list.
Obviously, in recent years, Big Pharma has become more powerful and is raking in more money. This success has been achieved through powerful alliances on Capitol Hill, especially with progressive Democrats. Therefore, it is essential that congressional Republicans stand firm against this costly power play.
It is corporate cronyism at its worst and has gone on far too long on Capitol Hill.
Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian and his award-winning program, “Ringside Politics,” airs Saturdays from Noon until 1 p.m. CT nationally on Real America's Voice TV Network & AmericasVoice.News and weekdays from 7-11 a.m. CT on WGSO 990-AM & Wgso.com. He is a political columnist, the author of America's Last Chance and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff Crouere YouTube channel and on Crouere.net. For more information, email him at jcrouere@gmail.com