Joe Biden could end up wielding the first veto of his presidency not on one of the great issues of state, but over a wonky skirmish sparked by the Republican Party’s assault on what its culture warriors brand as “woke” capitalism.
Congress has sent to his desk a resolution overturning a Labor Department rule that allows managers of retirement funds to consider environmental and other factors when picking investments. The measure passed the Democratic-controlled Senate on Wednesday with the votes of all Republicans and two vulnerable Democrats. And now Biden has vowed to block it.
The showdown might seem obscure, but it is a barometer of the kind of cultural backlash agenda that is certain to shape the tense politics of the next two years in divided Washington and in the Republican primary in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.
The strategy is the latest front in the Republican Party’s self-described war on “woke” – in other words, their efforts to attack some climate change and social or racial equity policies that they believe will fire up their most conservative voters, many of whom fear their vision of American is under attack. The GOP is trying to define the next few years as a struggle between “normal or crazy,” as Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders characterized the divide during her response to Biden’s State of the Union address.
The resolution Congress passed also shows how the GOP is increasingly unmoored from its role as the party of corporate America and Wall Street, as it seeks to weaponize the cultural anxieties of its most committed voters in red states. Investment firms had around $18 trillion in so-called Environmental, Social and Governance assets in 2021, according to PwC, which allow fund managers to make investing decisions based on such non-financial considerations. The GOP’s assault on socially conscious…
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