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Donald Trump's pissy recalcitrance in condemning the white supremacist and neo-Nazi movements, in the days after Charlottesville, has been met with widespread contempt. It's also proving the last straw for some of the business leaders on Trump's various "advisory" counsels; there's a lot that America's most high-profile CEO's will sit quiet for, but few want their companies to be known for not taking sides in a fight between Nazi flag-wavers and everyone else.
But it's not proving to be the last straw for others, and the reason is simple cowardice.
Privately, many chief executives say they are fuming, outraged by the president. (This after many of them campaigned to get on Mr. Trump’s committees.) But many are too scared to say anything publicly that could make them or their company a target of Mr. Trump’s wrath.
Indeed, Mr. Trump’s vitriol against Mr. Frazier and Merck — a company that depends on the government as a buyer for many of its drugs — will perhaps have an even greater chilling effect on other C.E.O.s who may consider speaking out. [...]
When I asked one chief executive Monday morning why he had remained publicly silent, he told me: “Just look at what he did to Ken. I’m not sticking my head up.” Which, of course, is the reason he said I could not quote him by name.
Translation: I am unwilling to offer an opinion on Trump's continued tacit alliance with white supremacists in America because he might say bad things about me and damage my future earnings prospects. Truly, a profile in courage.
Of course, this is not the way these things work. There are some things that are so categorically and unquestionably wrong that to express timidity toward them, as Trump did, is itself abominable. We here in America defeat Nazis, we do not march under their banner. We oppose fascist sentiments; we condemn the vile slogans of the Holocaust and its enablers. We oppose eugenic notions of racial worth and white supremacist demands for ethnic cleansing.
All of those are sentiments so malevolent and destructive that to remain silent when confronted with them is, itself, tacit acceptance of those beliefs as valid niches of American discourse. They are not. Corporate allies of Trump's administration who believe they can simply gloss over the question of whether white supremacy should be coddled or condemned will be judged by their silence.