On January 6, 2021, as rioters swarmed the U.S. Capitol, one of America’s most powerful business lobbies—the National Association of Manufacturers—issued an extraordinary condemnation. Headlined “Manufacturers Call on Armed Thugs to Cease Violence at Capitol,” the statement by NAM President Jay Timmons decried the attack as “chaos” and “mob rule”:
This is sedition and should be treated as such. The outgoing president incited violence in an at…