Capitulation Comes With a Price

Bending the knee to Trump will cost you.

If we had to go back to the first Trump administration for examples of him throwing loyalists under the bus, we might be able to write off the naivete of those who continue to think capitulation is a good idea as short-term amnesia. But the fact that there are ample instances in just the past four months makes me question the ongoing insistence that prostrating yourself or your company before the orange throne will somehow soften the blow.

We could look at Bezos forking over a million dollars to the Trump regime for a seat on the inaugural dais after refusing to run an endorsement of Kamala Harris, only to have his Washington Post kicked out of the Pentagon to make room for networks like Breitbart and OANN. But he wasn’t the only corporate media outlet to be ousted. The New York Times, known for burying ledes on page 16 about Trump also got the boot, along with NBC and CNN.

Jake Tapper, after trying to take the spotlight off of Trump’s mental acuity by highlighting anonymously-sourced complaints about Joe Biden has seen his ratings tank. Not to be outdone by the continuing denigration of networks like CBS and ABC that pre-settled lawsuits with the administration.

We can also learn from major corporations that abandoned diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility to curry favor with Trump. Target is a good example. Net sales for the company are down almost 3%, foot traffic is down 10%, and their stock is at the lowest point in five years.

How about Tesla? Sales are down five months in a row as Musk recorded the biggest personal financial loss in history. In fact, Tesla profits dropped 71% in the first three months of 2025. Delivery of Teslas dropped about 13% from the same period last year, and 2024 saw the first year-over-year decline in sales in more than a decade. And Twitter has lost tons of revenue as well, though I imagine Musk telling advertisers to go fuck themselves probably didn’t help. According to Bloomberg, some of the banks that lent Musk money to purchase Twitter are now trying to offload that debt.

And now in recent days we have seen reporting from the Wall Street Journal about the perils of big law firms folding under pressure. As it turns out, people don’t have a lot of confidence in firms who aren’t willing to fight. Major corporate clients like Oracle, Morgan Stanley, and Microsoft are abandoning the firms that donated pro-bono work to the Trump regime. “In interviews, general counsels expressed concern about whether they could trust law firms that struck deals to fight for them in court and in negotiating big deals if they weren’t willing to stand up for themselves against Trump.”

Finally, we are starting to see the reckoning of elected representatives having to weigh the choice of supporting Trump or supporting their constituents. That’s becoming glaringly apparent in the fight over the Billionaire Bailout Bill - where loyalists like Josh Hawley are (for now) putting their foot down over gutting Medicaid - mostly because large swaths of their constituents depend on the program for health care.

So whether you’re a CEO, a media conglomerate, a big law firm, or an elected official - it’s time to learn that capitulation comes with a price - and you’re going to have to pay up sooner or later. You’re either against the oligarchy or you’re part of it, and the people are watching.

~AG