Smart married men need only think back to the last gift they bought their wife for an idea of what made Les Wexner the richest man in Ohio. If you stopped into either Bath & Body Works or Victoria’s Secret before her birthday and picked up something you knew she would love, you accidentally gave money to the Republican Party.
That’s because Wexner is the CEO of L Brands, the mega-corporation that brought you those stores along with The Limited, Abercrombie & Fitch, Lane Bryant, and a host of other mall-friendly stores that made the Dayton native a billionaire. And as a general rule, most billionaires are Republicans — until this week, when Wexner renounced his membership in the GOP.
“I just decided I’m no longer a Republican,” Wexner said to a room full of business leaders, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
The announcement came just one day after former President Barack Obama appeared in Ohio at a rally for Richard Cordray, the Democratic candidate for governor in the state. Obama took the GOP to task for deflecting “oversight of this behavior and accountability and consequences,” referring to the Republican effort to derail any investigations into Donald Trump’s affairs and instead hustle through his judicial nominees and vote for his proposals while simultaneously — and meaninglessly — paying lip service to wanting transparency in government and an end to Trump’s tweeting.
Obama accused top-ranking members of the Republican Party of essentially saying “‘we’ll put up with crazy’ in exchange for tax reform and deregulation.”
Wexner echoed Obama’s thoughts and offered praise for the ex-President:
I was struck by the genuineness of the man; his candor, humility and empathy for others.”
In 2016 alone, Wexner gave more than $300,000 to Republican candidates. He now vows that support is gone.
After similar announcements from the rich and powerful and from longtime Republicans — Wexner himself says he’s been a member of the Party since college, and he’s now 81 years old — Republicans are finally beginning to fear a Democratic takeover of not just the House, but possibly the Senate as well.
Featured image via screen capture
