they actually do, but its more covertly than that. at least with things like the eco-protests trying to disrupt traffic, or public spaces this is to undermine the movement to turn people against the protestors and the movement itself. this is all done by the oil industry, they also fund initiatives like"reduicng your Carbon footprint" so they dont have to reduce thier emissions. i remember certain educational videos about animals where they were promoting these initiative they were called out as being “shells” for the oil companies, luckily they removed it after in future videos.

Donating to politicians is more effective.

Leadership of these companies are part of an elite business class. They live in their own luxury, country club world separate from the rabble. They think the common man doesn’t know what’s good for them. They keep an eye out for other high up jobs at big firms so they don’t rock the boat.

Noam Chomsky talks about this a lot. I recommend reading more from him. Also Michael Sandel has makes this point in a more politically anodyne way.

Civil unrest is the one situation where corporations hope everyone forgets they exist.

corporate success for companies as huge as McDonald’s or Coca-Cola rely on the broadest appeal. that means being politically agnostic. aligning with anyone would alienate at least some of their customer base and cost them tremendous amounts of money. so they just stay as neutral as possible.

This would be the most American thing possible.
The success of the protests would be measured by how much profit they created.
Businesses would buy fire insurance, then give Molotov cocktails to rioters in front of branch locations trying to unionize.
Megaphone speeches would include messages from the sponsors.

Big business tends to be on the other end of the political spectrum

I’m unsure whether it would be cringe or clever if McDonalds went all in on the No Kings protest, claiming that they misunderstood the concept and thought it was against Burger King.

Surely that would have to be changed to “No Burger Kings”. Wouldn’t have the same impact.

Large brands, like MacDonalds, avoid controversy because their business model depends on appealing to the widest possible audience. Their goal is to keep people consuming whether that means buying products, eating, or staying at their establishments.

Supporting movements like “No Kings” or any form of protest risks alienating a significant portion of potential customers.

There is no upside to taking a stance. Only risk to the bottom line.

Would you buy burgers from burger king if they sponsored people yelling outside abortion clinics?

Sponsoing protests would be a great way to lose half your customers. You won’t make up for it by selling more burgers to the protesters sympathisers.

The business of business is business.

Businesses want stability, safety, and predictability. Protests really are kind of the opposite energy. Their whole point is to shake things up and reroute the direction of the world, sometimes in big ways. They can also be unpredictable and unfortunately in some cases even unsafe. I remember seeing every store window on Telegraph Avenue broken the day after a big protest. It was sad. The family owned grocery store got it just as bad as the corporate clothing retailer.

Not long ago when the Hong Kong protests were off the hook and things were getting super tense there, some Hong Kong family visited us here in the US for the holidays. The younger generation were super informed and watching their phones and they told us all about the protests, the political actors, the demands, the rhetoric, and the energy in the streets.

Meanwhile, at dinner, the (very wealthy) grandma made a toast and said “Hong Kong needs peace! Doesn’t matter who’s in charge!” There was a super uncomfortable silence and you could see the youngs biting their lips. She has massive business interests there and just wants to keep manufacturing stuff. She doesn’t care about idealism or whatever else.

If a political candidate is really pro business, they don’t go about their agenda by staging protests. The two really just don’t mix. Businesses lobby and donate.

That’s funny. They call it a protest but it looks like a mass therapy rally from here. Also, AFAIK Denmark and Thailand are both kingdoms and do just fine.

because then they would be punished by the trump administration. he would have govt agencies cone up with reasons to investigate them, take away their tax breaks, etc.

the point of a company is to make money, that’s it.

protesting is one of the few “real” things left to us, it would be horrifying it that got commercialised too.

I question the sincerity but its grassroots and no one is looking for corpo sponsorship. They could anonymously donate if they want and its important to them.