Maybe there’s polarity between the “corporation” and the “brand”. The brand is what influences people in the mainstream. If that’s positive influence, then I’m all for it. That’s no excuse for playing devil’s advocate though.
Definitely agree. Nike's support for Colin Kaepernick tells countless young people that it's important to stand up (or kneel!) for what they believe, and that's incredibly valuable.
PACs are super weird. So many corporations have PACs, and usually they don't even donate all that much money (Nike's has donated less than $150K in 2018), but they often donate roughly equally to both parties, which kinda makes you wonder what the point is (other than maintaining "access" to congresspeople, which frankly feels a bit bribey).
Also, corporate PACs are typically funded by employee contributions. Sometimes employees are encouraged to contribute a small amount from each paycheck, but aren't really told anything about what the PAC will do with that money other than generally furthering the company's interests, so some people end up contributing to a PAC that's contributing to political candidates they personally would never contribute to and they don't even realize it.
I'm not even close to understanding this area of politics, but I've been paying more attention to it recently and have been boggled by what I've been learning.