OPINION:
Last week, Apple announced it would be opening an engineering hub in Raleigh, North Carolina creating at least 3,000 jobs in machine learning, artificial intelligence and software engineering.
It’s good Apple is investing in America, however, the choice of North Carolina, a solidly purple state, is curious. Especially because Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook cited progressive politics — not tax breaks, infrastructure, or climate — to explain the company’s decision.
Democratic Gov. Rory Cooper said he spoke with Mr. Cook before the announcement was made and Mr. Cook said he was pleased North Carolina’s legislature had rolled back House Bill 2, a 2016 law that required transgender people to use the public bathroom associated with their birth certificate assigned sex.
“They [Apple] want to be a committed partner with our state for the long term,” Mr. Cooper said in a press conference with legislative leaders.
In other words — they’ll come here, and in return for doing so — we need to continue to press a progressive, woke agenda.
North Carolina is one of the few reliably purple states in the nation. The 2020 presidential election was so tight official results weren’t determined until a week after election day. Mr. Trump won by a narrow 74,481 votes.
President Joe Biden cut into Mr. Trump’s margins by racking up support in the urban and suburban counties, like Raleigh, winning over White college-educated voters, whereas the former president outperformed in the rural areas. Mr. Cooper won his reelection in the same areas where Mr. Biden ran up the votes.
It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Mr. Cooper wants to bulk up his state’s population — with reliably Democratic voters — in cities like Raleigh. And Apple – which has endorsed the Black Lives Matter Movement and critical race theory in its own diversity training — seems invested in helping him turn the purple state blue.
It’s no secret Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg invested heavily in the 2020 election; NPR wrote a news story titled: “How private money from Facebook’s CEO saved the 2020 election.”
Mr. Zuckerberg donated $350 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life non-profit, which worked in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, to set up drop boxes, ramp up voter outreach, and establish early voting on reservations. NPR admitted it was “difficult to determine how the money was spent,” because the nonprofit declined to make their investments public or take any interviews.
Election officials in Chester County, Pennsylvania said they received a $2.5 million grant from the group, more than the county’s entire 2020 election budget, to help process mail-in ballots.
Chester County “delivered big time,” for President Biden, “providing him the largest percentage gain of any county in Pennsylvania,” The Washington Post detailed in its post-election coverage. Mr. Biden garnered a victory of more than 17 percentage points against Mr. Trump in the county, helping him secure an overall statewide victory of more than 80,000 votes.
Then there’s the general censorship and suppression of conservative voices on Big Tech’s platforms.
On Wednesday, Facebook decided to uphold Mr. Trump’s ban on its site, blocking the former president from communicating with the American people. Twitter already had implemented a permanent ban on Mr. Trump.
Twitter and Facebook are major fundraising and communication tools for political campaigns — and it’s still uncertain if Mr. Trump will decide to run in 2024. One thing certain, however, is that both of these Silicon Valley companies will do their best to promote Democratic voices and issues, and suppress, censor or ban conservative dissent.
It’s a tremendous public-private partnership — for the progressive left, that is. It’s time for Republicans to aggressively fight back and break-up these powerful monopolies, who are using their wealth, power and control of the public square to turn America solidly blue.
• Kelly Sadler is commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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