My guess is that up until now, the cause for these events has been hard to quantify and identify. Like your example of people in West Virginia and Kentucky who have lost their jobs and got drenched in opiates. Who do we rally against for that? You could argue that it's caused by automation, outsourcing, globalism, capitalism, local policy, state policy, federal policy, and at least a dozen other things. People don't band together against something that has just happened. Boiling the frog and all that.
Companies are throwing their hat into the ring on this issue because there is a clear and present threat with an immense amount of power. You can point to it and say "look, this is going to cause things that I'm not okay with, and I will stand against it". It's finally cut and dry. Evil exists and it can be fought.
Screw cynicism, that's the easy way to deal with these events.
And those are also issues that everybody agreed are issues; it's the solutions where there was disagreement.
Trump's platform was that bribing corporations to keep jobs in America, loosening environmental regulation and tearing up TPP & NAFTA were the solutions for lost factory jobs.
Clinton's platform was that education, a social safety net and withdrawing from the TPP were the best solutions.
Fighting to build awareness of problems is a lot easier than agreeing on a solution.
Companies are throwing their hat into the ring on this issue because there is a clear and present threat with an immense amount of power. You can point to it and say "look, this is going to cause things that I'm not okay with, and I will stand against it". It's finally cut and dry. Evil exists and it can be fought.
Screw cynicism, that's the easy way to deal with these events.