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Comment by Aurornis | Hacker News Reader

> Apple employees donated nearly 20:1 for Harris over Trump, so we can safely assume they weren't supportive of Tim Cook presenting him with gaudy personal gifts

Every company works with whoever gets elected. This isn’t new. It isn’t indicative of political support. It’s just how business is done.

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The idea that a corporation, a private entity, can flex so much influence over our government is a direct threat to the entire model of government that has lead to America's greatest successes.

There is a triangular structure, where government, corporations, and labor all keep each other in check. The balance between these three represents the golden age of America in many metrics, although attributing that age to JUST this balance is silly.

Happiness, income inequality, trust in institutions, etc. all of it follows this trend. Even life expectancy is dropping! Literacy rates are declining!

Why? A huge part is that this balance is completely shattered. Labor has almost no influence, with corporations consuming 80% of it. Now we are rubbing up against a true fueudal Corporatocracy and the tip of the spear is not shy about that (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel)

>"It’s just how business is done"

I will not just roll over and accept this. It's worse than it ever has been, and the last time it got bad we had a severe economic collapse that led to starvation in the streets. How will it go next time, with the core problem being 100x larger and globally networked? Maybe we should address the problem before catastrophe?

Without commenting on the other implications, I like that Apple can successfully push back against the surveillance state, because the citizenry certainly aren’t going to do it. “Think of the children” works on too much of the citizenry for them to maintain a principled stance on surveillance.

That makes it that much easier to stop supporting them, in my eyes. Tim has the option to draw the line in the sand, but he's reliant on protectionist US control more than ever now.

This isn't 'business as usual' on multiple levels.

First, I never claimed Cook "supports" Trump - as I said, I suspect he personally loathes him. The point is that corporations are making unprecedented concessions to avoid Trump's wrath.

Second, companies push back on government constantly when it serves their interests. Apple previously fought the FBI over privacy, but more typically companies push back or evade the law for financial benefit, not principles. When penalties are low enough they accept them as the cost of doing business, e.g. Meta's consistent, willful FTC consent decree violations.

Third, openly bribing a sitting president with a 24-karat gold gift is not normal corporate behavior. The Trump administration has used state power to control private enterprise in a completely unprecedented way: tariff threats as extortion, DOJ investigations targeting companies over DEI programs, prosecution of high-profile figures who resist - mostly political enemies so far but Zuckerberg faced threats of "life in prison" before he showed sufficient fealty.

I'm waiting for the whataboutism replies here, and executive overreach was a thing in the past, but Trump has fundamentally changed the character of the US system of government. The enabling environment is unprecedented: a Congress with zero interest in oversight and a Supreme Court granting immunity for official acts. When you combine unlimited executive power with no checks, corporate capitulation isn't "just business" - it's rational fear of an authoritarian using every lever of government to punish dissent.

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