We are in the midst of a corporate freak-out over Georgia’s new election law. As I explained previously, the only real complaint the left can muster is that it bans random strangers from electioneering by handing out food and water. That’s how you know it’s a good bill.

But while you’d expect Joe Biden to flub the details and Joy Reid to have a meltdown, one would hope that a company like Delta Airlines could use basic reading comprehension. But nah, instead they bent the knee and relentlessly virtue signaled to the woke, voter suppression conspiracy theorists.

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian just called the Georgia elections restrictions signed into law last week was “unacceptable” and “based on a lie” of widespread fraud in last November’s election. #gapol https://t.co/oJTtZZoY8f

— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) March 31, 2021

As Gov. Brian Kemp responded, it’d be nice if these clownish CEOs would actually point to a provision in the law they disapprove of. They don’t do so in their rantings, though, because this isn’t really about the content of the election reform bill. Rather, it’s about virtue signaling long enough to the left in hopes the story just goes away eventually. That’s the calculation. Delta is not going to leave Atlanta. They couldn’t if they wanted to, not without going bankrupt at least.

It’s long past time for Republicans to respond in kind. These massive companies enjoy tax breaks and special carve-outs to operate in business-friendly red states, yet they spit in the faces of Republicans and don’t even bother to operate in good faith on political issues. A state should never be so indebted to a corporation that it has to bend to the political will of said corporation, and that’s the situation these companies are attempting to enforce with their public commentary and state boycott threats.

On that note, Georgia’s legislature did pass an amendment to strip Delta of a tax break they receive.

Yup, I would support this. Time for Republicans to lay a clear choice for the Chamber of Commerce; go woke or get business-friendly policy. There is lots that Republicans can do to support small businesses while cutting corporate welfare. https://t.co/bPkVE8Guti

— Gabe Katz (@gabe_katz_) April 1, 2021

That amendment was apparently tabled in the Senate to the great cheers of Democrats, but even making the attempt is an important step. These corporations are at the forefront of the culture wars, whether they want to be there or not. They are making an active choice to appease the left-wing in this country without any care for the actual facts at hand. That’s on them, and there should be consequences. A company like Delta shouldn’t be getting subsidized by mostly Republican taxpayers in a state that has a Republican governor and legislature when they can’t be counted on to at least shut up after the woke start irrationally yelling.

There is nothing objectively wrong with Georgia’s election reform bill. It expands early voting, something most Republican voters don’t even support. It sets standards for reporting votes and data management after an election, something everyone should be in favor of. The voter ID provision is standard fare and the majority of states in the country have the same thing. If Delta is really doing all this over the non-issue of water bottles, they are even dumber than they appear.

It’s long past time for the GOP to play hardball with big business and the Chamber of Commerce. We don’t owe them our allegiance simply because we support free-market principles. No company is due a tax break, and if they don’t want to stay out of politics, they can’t complain when it bites them.