American Consequences - January 2021

to injury, Biden decided to fill his cabinet with their cronies. For example, Neera Tanden, who worked closely with corporate donors during her nine years as president of the Center for American Progress, has been chosen to run the Office of Management and Budget. In this position, she will be responsible for crucial budgeting decisions that will affect the entire economy, including regulations on corporations run by her friends. She was well-known for getting into Twitter battles with the Bernie wing of the Democratic Party during the primaries, particularly on health care and foreign policy, areas that she will undoubtedly be asked to weigh in on. To identify as a “centrist” right now is a luxury only available to comfortable entities, like major corporations. The rest of the population is fraying into extremisms, and not without reason. Biden’s appointee choices range from Democratic establishment careerists (Rahm Emanuel, Janet Yellen, Antony Blinken, John Kerry) to executives fresh from Wall Street and Silicon Valley... Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Google, and Facebook. This has not gone unnoticed by the socialist Left. One Jacobin writer cataloged the hypocrisies of liberal media outlets that attacked Trump for appointing people with such backgrounds but have neglected to scrutinize Biden for doing the same.

top of it, Bradley said the lobbying giant was forced to reach out to centrists in both parties since the business community prefers a vital political center and an economy focused on shareholder profits. He added that responding to the rise of populism with centrism will continue to be the Chamber’s modus operandi when Congress reconvenes. To identify as a “centrist” right now is a luxury only available to comfortable entities, like major corporations. The rest of the population is fraying into extremisms, and not without reason. Besides the decades-long general trend of escalating inequality between the wealthiest Americans and the rest of the population, small businesses (which employ almost half of the American workforce) are being crushed by excessive lockdown policies. In September, Yelp estimated 60% of small businesses closed during the COVID lockdowns will never reopen. Meanwhile, America’s 651 billionaires collectively gained more than $1 trillion since March. That makes their total wealth standing at $4 trillion, not far from doubling the $2.1 trillion held by the bottom 50% of the U.S. population. CEOs of tech companies, which account for a record-breaking 40% of the S&P 500 Index, gained the most. The highest earner was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who raked in $90.1 billion. Bill Gates saw a 20% increase in wealth, Zuckerberg an 85% increase. All of these billionaires are friendly with the Democrats and their nonprofits. This new administration was already deeply beholden to them and their interests, but to add insult

American Consequences

57

Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs