by Steve Milloy, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow and Junkscience.com Founder
As appearing on RealClear Energy
By Steve Milloy
August 20, 2026
The Trump administration has improved upon the famous adage that capitalists will sell communists the rope by which the latter would hang the former. Now the capitalists seem to be just giving the rope away.
The supposedly free-market-oriented commissioners at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission just announced an extension of last year’s policy giving corporate managements a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card on shareholder proposals. That policy effectively locks in anti-business gains made over the past couple of decades by left-wing activist shareholders.
For decades, left-wing activist shareholders have used shareholder proposals under SEC rules to hijack the resources and influence of publicly traded corporations. The scheme began under euphemisms such as “corporate social responsibility” and “socially responsible investing.” They were later rebranded as “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) investing. ESG has successfully moved corporations, if not America, way to the left on issues like climate and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
The left’s efforts began in the 1980s when it found itself out of power in Washington after Ronald Reagan’s election, and those efforts have been incredibly successful. They produced a plethora of “woke” corporations used to advance left-wing policy on a national, if not global, level.
