The thing that the leftists don’t get, not at all, not even a little bit, is that the big corporations that they hate so much THRIVE in an atmosphere of oppressive government regulation. The big corporations LOVE the EU.
It is small business that is crushed by big government. Big government and big corporations go together like a horse and carriage.
I'm afraid that they do get it. They know big corporations can be bought off in return for a few short- to medium-term legal advantages, creating large, hierarchical monopolies that are easy for governments to nationalize at some future date. As long as the boys at the top can keep some of their perks, they won't even object. Fill the corporations up with well-catechized HR managers who are up to date on all of the latest nuances of political correctness and you have entities perfectly groomed to be directly absorbed into government at some future date.
Small businesses, on the other hand, are completely uncontrollable by government, and run by all sorts of right wing cranks, fanatical libertarians, and Ayn Rand devotees who can never be brought around to right thinking...and who give the proletariat all sorts of reactionary ideas about independence and personal freedom.
Big government uses big business and its favored legal status to crush small business as part of their long-term plan to achieve utopian Communism. It has taken a long time for many conservatives to figure out that the GOPe is an integral part of this scheme, and not the least bit interested in reducing the regulatory or tax burden on small business. As long as they can keep tricking most a=small business owners into voting for the GOP with a few platitudes about "middle class tax cuts", they feel to real pressure to do otherwise.