The word from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) was swift and unequivocal: “Manufacturers Call on Armed Thugs to Cease Violence at Capitol.” Issuing its statement at 3:37 PM on January 6, the trade association was one of the first business groups to condemn the riot at the Capitol — at that moment, still ongoing — and to denounce Donald Trump for continuing to circulate the “baseless claim” that he had won the election. “This is not law and order. This is chaos. It is mob rule.”

Four years earlier, NAM had written Trump to extend its congratulations and call for unity. The president came to speak to NAM members, his embrace of manufacturing in line with the organization’s aims. NAM encouraged its members to back Trump’s tax proposals, his raft of deregulation, and his support for expanding oil and gas drilling. The organization even honored Ivanka with its inaugural Alexander Hamilton Award as recently as February 2020.

But now, NAM’s leaders — and the many other businessmen who bankrolled the Republican Party as it tacked hard right — have to ask whether the sympathetic appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the tax breaks are worth the boots on Nancy Pelosi’s desk and the crazed warnings that Biden is a satanic pedophile. Can the open rejection of the “peaceful transfer of power,” the legitimacy of popular elections, and, more deeply, the power and authority of the United States government really be deemed in keeping with the old notion of business interests?