Amazon's $40M Trump Bribe

Upping the Ante on the Corporate Purchase of Government

Amazon, you may have heard, is paying the Trump family bigly in its attempt to curry favor with the President. $40 million to be exact—for the rights to produce a documentary about Melania Trump.

I criticized Amazon here for donating $1M to the Trump inauguration and another $1M in-kind donation via its streaming service—something it did not do for Biden. But at least it could try hiding behind the fact that other tech companies joined it.

But no, Amazon has set itself apart once again for bad corporate behavior.

(From a cartoon censored by Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post)

Not Even a Decent Corporate Citizen

Now Amazon isn’t “just” union busting.

Now its warehouses aren’t “just” a physically unsafe workplace.

Amazon is not longer “just” trying to abolish most federal oversight of labor violations.

Or “just” auctioning tax deals off between cities for HQ2.

Or “just” trying to buy Seattle elections.

Nope. Now it has taken the vaguely pay-to-play vibe of matching big corporate donations to a public event (the inauguration) and leapt into the sordid future where it is forking over tens of millions in cash to privately enrich the President in order to get more favorable treatment from him.

In other words, Amazon has brazenly embraced corruption.

So I think it is time to reshare some of what I wrote before:

Look, I think most of us are grateful for the jobs Amazon brings to the Seattle region and for the convenience it offers in my life (though I am trying to find reliable alternatives!). I love my friends that work there. I’m pleased that they provide some low interest loans for affordable housing projects. While I think they should pay higher taxes, I do understand the concept of a goose and golden egg.

But I think it’s time we do away with the fiction that Amazon is benign actor when it comes to public policy. We can recognize the ways that we in Seattle rely on Amazon without pretending that the people steering the ship are working for the good of our communities . . .

Amazon, and its proxies at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, love to pretend they are really just behaving like good, practical Democrats. But that is a lie. Insisting on low taxes and union busting is beyond the pale. Buying candidates a spot on the city council to get a better deal on taxes is gross and (legal, but still) corrupt.

Let’s call this for what it is. It’s a bribe. It’s a legal bribe, but it is a pay-to-play bribe. It is a [$40M] gift to a tin-pot wanna be autocrat who is hellbent on turning the federal government into an instrument of revenge against his enemies and a massive corruption racket. And who is threatening to inflict a humanitarian atrocity on immigrant communities.

No one gets to give that kind of money to someone so mendacious and evil and still expect to be accepted in polite society.

Amazon loves money more than they love freedom, women’s basic bodily autonomy, or our community. That is their choice. But it is our choice how we respond. It is our choice for how we view and respond to the actions of the Seattle Chamber, which Amazon dominates. It is also the media’s choice whether they bring this up when they local Chamber and Amazon executives make vaguely progressive sounding statements during election seasons.

Friendly reminder of how this should impact your February ballot. Amazon is the most powerful member of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

If you live in Seattle, you should know that the Chamber of Commerce currently wants you to vote for Proposition 1(B) in February.

In fact, the Chamber is leading that campaign and has put $40k behind it—in order to prevent the actual funding of social housing, and stop actual tax increases for incomes of over $1M per year. They are doing everything they can to marshal Democratic Party aligned sounding arguments to pull this off.

But as usual, it’s all a ruse, put on by an institution full of nice people, sure, but backed by the very folks who are paying these Trump bribes and who make sure the Chamber does their bidding.

Vote Proposition 1(A).

And don’t forget where their loyalty lies when the next election comes along and they pretend that their darlings like Sara Nelson actually believe almost anything resembling the Democratic party platform.