The increasingly apparent leftward alignment of "woke" corporations against conservatives and right-leaning independents has now resulted in what some might describe as a financial attack against a member of former President Donald Trump's family.
PNC Financial Services Group Inc. is reported to have abruptly cut ties with and closed the account of an online media venture launched by Donald Trump Jr. without any explanation, Breitbart reported.
That venture is a news aggregate platform known as MxM News, similar to aggregate platforms managed by companies like Apple and Google, that was created and launched last year by Trump Jr. and former Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich in order to "provide curated stories that are being silenced and or suppressed by big tech and the mainstream media.
"BREAKING: Woke @PNCBank just shut down the bank account for my app @mxmnews without any explanation," Trump Jr. tweeted Wednesday. "The Left doesn't think you should be able to exist, much less thrive, in society. It should be illegal to discriminate based on political affiliation!!!"
That tweet included a link to an exclusive Fox News report about what had occurred, as had been revealed to the outlet in a statement from Budowich following a visit to a PNC Bank branch in Florida to make some transactions.
"The teller said he was unable to complete the transfers as the account had been closed and balance had been zeroed out," Budowich explained. "After being told to call a generic helpline, I was informed by the PNC representative that per the terms and conditions, PNC reserves the right to re-evaluate their business relationships at any time and terminate accounts without cause."
"Woke corporations are using their terms and conditions like a guillotine over the head of every conservative entrepreneur," the former president's former spokesman added.
Trump Jr. told Fox News that the incident exposed how "it’s not just the media that’s become plagued by the woke agenda," but rather, "It’s banks, it’s the entire corporate America."
"We need a patriot economy. We need a parallel economy to fight back," he added and also noted that the sudden account closure was little more than "a minor setback for MxM News that we were able to quickly resolve."
"But what about every other start-up, or small business who wants to pursue a values-based company?" Trump Jr. said. "This should be investigated, and it should be illegal to discriminate based on political affiliation."
That call for an investigation was echoed by Andrew Surabian, a GOP strategist and adviser to Trump Jr., who said in a retweet of Trump Jr.'s message, "Republicans in Congress should immediately investigate this type of blatant discrimination of conservatives that woke banks like @PNCBank have been engaging in for far too long."
For what it is worth, PNC Bank issued a statement to Fox News in which it stated that "While PNC does not comment on the closure of specific accounts, which may occur for a variety of reasons, our account closure decisions are never driven by politics," and added, "As a national bank, we recognize and respect that our customers and our employees hold a wide range of political beliefs."
Nevertheless, Breitbart noted that a number of prominent elected Republicans and conservative figures lashed out against the financial institution on social media over the cancelation and perceived bias against conservatives generally and the Trump family specifically.
It remains to be seen if this incident will spark a broader pushback by the right against the increasingly left-leaning corporate America and, perhaps, even spur the development of a "parallel" "patriot" economy to serve as an alternative to those who feel ideologically discriminated against.
