Business to Business: Vote Harris

Dear Business Reader:

We are leaders in our communities and are responsible for jobs and careers. Normally, business and politics make for uncomfortable bedfellows, but this presidential election is an exception. This column would not have been written if President Biden were seeking reelection, nor is it a column urging business votes for other elective offices.

It became clear in the June 27 debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden that President Biden was suffering cognitive decline, exactly as congressman Dean Phillips had warned (apologies due). The focus on that obvious decline took attention away from the cognitive decline of Donald Trump. With Biden bowing out of the race, Trump, if elected, would be the oldest person ever inaugurated.

Many corporations have a mandatory age-based retirement policy for directors and chief executives. Al Gore, for example, age 75, is stepping down from Apple’s board because of that company’s age-based restriction for directors. The vast majority of corporate CEOs (at least of large corporations) choose or are forced to retire well before the traditional retirement age of 65. Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, a respected executive placement firm, reports that the average age of an exiting CEO was 56 in 2023, down from over 63 in 2017. Former President Jimmy Carter once said that he had been 80, and he had been president, but you cannot be both. Incoherence, losing focus, lack of detail mastery, and reliance on word-salad answers are now all too common with Trump. Lack of mental acuity exacerbated by age is one reason that this country must turn the page and elect Kamala Harris.

Businessperson to businessperson: It is unlikely that any search committee would recommend Donald Trump as its next executive director or CEO. No responsible search group would recommend a 78-year-old credibly accused of sexual harassment, convicted of numerous felonies, awaiting criminal sentencing, who had previously declared bankruptcy on multiple occasions, and whose business and charities have been banned in their state of origin. Tone at the top and character matter, and we all know that.

Businesses benefit from the rule of law. If there is no rule of law, the sanctity of contracts and the fair judicial enforcement of contractual rights all vanish. As one of the 88 business leaders who recently signed a letter of support for Harris said, “Business leaders prefer to invest where there is a rule of law, not the law of rulers.” Investors the world over know that their investments are safe and will be treated fairly in the United States. All of that stability is based on the peaceful transfer of government power.

The peaceful transfer of power is not a common event in most countries; an analysis by The Economist showed that in the past 100 years, only about half of the world’s countries had managed a single power transfer free of coups, civil wars, or constitutional crises. We used to do it every four years.

You know the contrast with Jan. 6, 2021. As of press time, Trump has been impeached twice, indicted, and is awaiting trial on insurrection charges for the dangerous and un-American effort to prevent the winner of the 2020 election from being certified as the next president. The insurrection on that date was preceded by the lies Trump spread about the legitimacy of the election result, a pattern he has continued to this day. No one who actively prevents the peaceful transfer of power, or who supports such actions, ever deserves to be elected to any office, let alone the presidency. Full stop.

There is another truth that we in business know: Competition produces higher-quality products at lower cost. That is one reason why we frequently issue requests for bids (RFBs) or scope of work (SOW) to our various vendors and, in turn, respond to these from our various customers. But (and here some of my liberal friends will roll their eyes), we know the same is true in politics and government. In Minnesota, we desperately need a responsible and competitive Republican party, one that could live up to the legacy of Quie, Carlson, Boschwitz, Durenberger, Ramstad, and Pawlenty, to name recent examples. The current party has become the cult of Trump and engages in a form of political carnivory where the extreme fringe devours reasonable candidates (see the recent turmoil in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District, or the U.S. Senate endorsement, for example). The normalization of fringe lunacy masquerading as a major political party can cause a somewhat equal tendency in the other political party (see “defund the police” candidates). We will not have the benefits of political competition until the Trump influence is removed from the GOP. Businesspeople can help accomplish that in the upcoming election.

In business we live by honoring our contracts and depending on the rule of law. We know the importance of free markets unencumbered by political tariffs. We understand that fringe political groups should not be rewarded with high governmental offices. We should vote Harris-Walz by Nov. 5.

Sincerely yours,

Vance K. Opperman
Yours for a Minnesotan in the West Wing