OPINION:
Political movements and Broadway musicals share an important characteristic. Every quality production requires a great choreographer. Allow me to introduce to you the choreographer of today’s star-studded “Large Corporations Against America.” The man behind the scenes waving his white baton making it all come together is none other than Yale University’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld.
This master of the masters of the universe has the official designation of “Senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies & Lester Crown Professor in the Practice of Management” at Yale. What does that mean he teaches? I would guess very little in the actual classroom, but outside the academy he is leading the management of large corporations to act in unison in service of radical left-wing causes.
This past weekend a group of high-powered CEOs, many of them heading companies like General Motors, Starbucks, Netflix and Google (Warren Buffett also joined), gathered together virtually for the purpose of addressing and issuing a statement against efforts, like those in the state of Georgia, to ensure fair elections. As reported in ABC News:
“Without offering specifics, the statement — issued by the Yale School of Management and two other civic groups — noted that the ‘CEOs indicated readiness to act individually and collectively to shore up American democracy and ensure Americans have access to a world class voting system.’”
As large corporations join together to condemn traditional American values and institutions, it’s Mr. Sonnenfeld who is at the epicenter.
Mr. Sonnenfeld put together a conference of CEOs back on Jan. 13 to address the election certification process. It was the third in a series of such conferences he called regarding the election; the first being in November and the next on Jan. 5 (the day before the certification of the election). After the Jan. 13 event, attended by approximately 40 CEOs, Mr. Sonnenfeld wrote an op-ed where he said the following regarding the “consensus” of the CEOs:
Participants expressed several ideas for longer-term actions to restore democracy. Among them are:
• A whole of society approach with collaboration among all institutions in society.
• Reining in social media by enacting rules that hold platforms responsible.
• Creating a shared set of facts to counter disinformation.
• Focusing at the state level to prevent disenfranchisement of voters.
• Bridging gaps. Only a subset of Trump supporters engaged in insurrection. It is a mistake not to try to bridge the gaps that exist with these individuals.
I’m glad to know that Jeffrey and his CEO pals believe it’s only a “subset” of Trump supporters they feel they need to target. I’m sad to learn the professor doesn’t yet know we live in a constitutional republic, not a democracy.
Team left likes to talk about “coded” language and “dog whistles” that are used by conservatives as ways of saying things without actually saying them so as to not overtly draw attention. Well, those five bullet points issued by Mr. Sonnenfeld on behalf of Yale and America’s woke CEOs, are in code so easy to decipher that their signal is shattering eardrums. This group is embracing a globalist, collectivist, and outright totalitarian approach to controlling speech and setting policy.
The CEOs are the students and Professor Sonnenfeld is at the whiteboard.
In a recent podcast interview on Axios, Mr. Sonnenfeld made it clear the next stop for him on his CEO tour is to attack political donations from corporations and their leaders to conservative candidates. The smart money is on him succeeding in curtailing these donations, in part because today’s CEOs are alumni from the same woke college campuses like Yale that have been teaching anti-American messages for decades; but also because Professor Sonnenfeld seems to be an excellent instructor.
What astonishes me about the success of the professor is that he seems to be able to manipulate, with little resistance, the men and women who are considered to be among the most powerful in our country. Corporate CEOs are thought to be headstrong and self-centered, not easily swayed by even the most persuasive of personalities. Indeed, one famous study out of Australia even suggests that they tend to be psychopathic at a much higher rate than that of the general population. How can Mr. Sonnenfeld possibly puppeteer such a group?
The answer, tragically, is quite simple. Today’s CEOs tend not to be true patriotic Americans. Say what you will about the personal character flaws of America’s great industrial leaders like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mellon and Ford. While all were far from perfect, they were nevertheless patriots who loved America.
The vast majority of today’s large, corporate CEOs are unencumbered by any sense of national obligation or loyalty to our home. That makes them a sort of tabula rasa, which in turn makes them the perfect student for a professor who has taken the art of campus indoctrination and lifted it from the undergraduate lecture hall to the C-suite.
Well done, Professor Sonnenfeld. To anyone paying attention, you have proven to be a formidable adversary. It’s time for you to step out of the shadows and have the whole of America pay attention what you are up to. I think they will be surprised, impressed and, hopefully, terrified.
• Charlie Kirk is the founder and president of Turning Point USA and host of the podcast and nationally syndicated Salem radio show, “The Charlie Kirk Show.”
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