By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm:
For many years, the reliable bet was that a deep distrust of corporations, and what we might call an anti-corporate bias in a litigation context, is a left-wing phenomenon. While conservatives might generally hew to the sentiment behind the adage that “What’s good for General Motors is good for America,” the left would be the ones thinking that big business is too big, too powerful, and too unregulated. For many years as a litigation consultant, I have collected and followed the data on anti-corporate bias, and this belief was more often true than not. But that could be changing. I wrote at the start of the year regarding commentary on increasing anti-corporate attitudes among Republicans. In the wake of the response of many companies to adjust political donations in response to the January 6th 2021 riots (a stance that has now been largely walked back), and also in response to the perception of increasingly “woke” personnel policies, analysts were seeing no clear “break-up” between corporations and the right, but were seeing signs of a fundamental shift.
Recently, there is data to back up that fundamental shift. Survey responses from Pew Research Center published last month show that, rather than there being a generally pro-corporate right-wing and anti-corporate left-wing, there is now a surprisingly high level of agreement, with anti-corporate attitudes being largely shared across both political wings. In this post, I will note the research conclusions from Pew and put them into context regarding the evolving bi-partisan picture of anti-corporate bias.
Pew Research: Liberals and Conservatives Agree on Corporations
Comparing the trajectory of attitudes between 2019 and now, Pew notes that Democrats and Republicans have in that short span moved from a situation where Republicans had nearly twice the support for both banks and financial institutions as well as for corporations generally, to a situation of near-uniformity. The line-graphs Pew shared are striking:
Only a quarter of Democrats and Republicans believe that large corporations have a positive effect on the way things are going in this country, and the support for banks and other financial institutions is only moderately better. By and large, it has been the Republicans who have reduced their opinions to match the Democrats’ lower levels. Where they are differentiated is on technology companies, where they moved from a position of parity just three years ago to a modest liberal advantage as Republicans have become more negative. This is likely based on the perception that technology companies have been censoring conservative views, but the very recent drama of Elon Musk’s takeover at Twitter could play a future role in bringing down the attitudes of Democrats as well.
I see both basic as well as more nuanced implications to these changes in anti-corporate attitudes.
The Basic Implication: Don’t Presume
The first implication is that we can no longer rely on the belief that conservative jurors are more likely to be, for that reason, pro-corporate jurors. That suggests that when analyzing the panel, and particularly the results of social media research, it is even more important to look beyond the binary and to assess what type of liberal, conservative, or independent you might be dealing with as a potential juror: Are they a Romney-conservative or a MAGA-conservative? Are they a mainstream liberal or a progressive? Are they a libertarian independent or just disengaged? Factors like education and urbanization are also likely to matter in the unique context of your case.
The More Complex Implication: Reasons Matter
Even as there are nearly identical levels of anti-corporate attitudes between Democrats and Republicans, it is quite likely that the underlying reasons for those attitudes vary dramatically. Liberals are likely to say that big corporations have too much power over the economy, are exploiting workings, and are harming the environment. Conservatives, for their part, might agree with none of those, but instead feel that corporations are too controlling of individual liberty, too “woke,” and too biased against their own personal politics.
The reasons for their anti-corporate attitudes will probably have everything to do with whether that bias will be applied to your civil client. In all cases, it will make sense to assess your case and to focus on the specific attitudes that create higher and lower risk, and to assess how those attitudes intersect with the changing partisan and ideological landscape in this country.
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Other Posts on Anti-Corporate Bias:
- Look Out for the Anti-corporate Right-wing
- Understand Anti-Corporate Bias: The Extent of the Bias and the Effect of Familiarity
- Bad Company: Investigate the Sources of Anti-Corporate Attitudes
Dunn A., Cerda A. (2022, Nov. 17), Anti-corporate sentiment in U.S. is now widespread in both parties. Pew Research Center. URL: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/11/17/anti-corporate-sentiment-in-u-s-is-now-widespread-in-both-parties/