With the practical battle over vaccine mandates in private enterprise heating up, the ideological battle is coming to the forefront as well. Does Joe Biden have the right to mandate vaccinations for private companies from the federal level? Do states have the right to then ban vaccine mandates for private companies as a counter move? Does the former justify the latter even if you typically believe businesses should be able to “do what they want”?

These are questions that are being hotly debated on the right, especially in light of Texas’ recent move to defy the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate. But in the business world, the debate is largely settled – they are going to do what Joe Biden says.

This per The Hill.

#NeverForget https://t.co/fHoKpu5GbJ

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) October 15, 2021

The fight over vaccine mandates between the White House and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is putting businesses in the middle. But many are picking the White House’s preferred policy.

American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, which are both based in the Lone Star State, say they will defy Abbott’s order that no business in the state can impose a vaccine mandate on employees or customers and comply with President Biden’s mandate that all companies with at least 100 employees require vaccines or weekly testing for employees.

Other companies based in Texas have already imposed vaccine mandates and have given no indication they will change their positions in the wake of Abbott’s executive order.

Here’s the thing about choosing sides: when you do so, you should have to actually suffer the consequences of that decision. If these corporations want to side with Joe Biden, actively undermining the legal challenges to the federal mandate, so be it. But they should pay a price for that.

For far too long, Republicans have allowed big businesses to push them around and spit in their faces while still demanding corporate tax breaks and government bail-outs. The GOP-corporate alliance is nothing if not an abusive relationship whereby Republicans suffer all the political consequences of being the party of “big business” while at the same time getting none of the benefits. When push comes to shove, these corporations (and Wall Street) don’t reward the party that has stood by and protected them. Instead, they run into the arms of the Democrat Party for their next suckle at the federal teet.

There’s also a very perverted crony-capitalist oligarchy forming in the United States in which large corporations actually thrive off of government regulation because it harms their smaller, less powerful competition. Become “too big to fail” and the taxpayer funds flow like wine at a middle-aged women’s book club while the little guys get crushed with needless administrative costs. That’s a big factor in why so much of corporate America is folding to Biden, including on the vaccine mandate. They see it as expeditious and a way to gain further market share via future favorable policies.

The tables will be turned eventually, though, and likely very soon if the political winds continue to blow right heading into 2022. When Republicans retake Congress, they should not forget those in corporate America who rushed to crush individual liberty by siding with Joe Biden. Republican governors and legislatures should also have a long memory. When those companies come calling for more subsidies, favorable regulations, and bail-outs, the answer should be simple – NO.