Read their records.
Biden’s cabinet nominees make much more sense when you follow the money.
Many naively hoped that Joe Biden would do an about-turn on everything he’s stood for for over four decades, and morph into some kind of progressive warrior. Of course, this hasn’t happened, and was never on the cards. What I’m about to talk you through is evidence of why it mattered who the Democrats nominated, beyond just “defeating Trump”.
The New York Times (a welcome act of scrutiny of top Democrats, from them) reported yesterday on the lucrative living Biden’s highest profile cabinet nominees have made in the Washington swamp, right off the back of an administration that made grift into an art form and in the midst of anti-lobbyist sentiment across America.
Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen, the first woman for the job and someone who progressives broadly (myself included) sighed a sigh of relief over as a pick, has made vast sums of money speaking to bankers, and Wall Street insiders. No matter how much you profess accountability and transparency, how can you take millions in speaking fees, especially to those sort of groups, and proceed to take on vested economic interests? Short answer, you can’t.
As is well known now, Secretary Of State nominee Antony Blinken has been involved with think tanks, earning millions, serving the need of the military industrial complex and advancing the most appalling interventionist causes. Blinken has wholeheartedly embraced the revolving door, in ways that even other Biden appointments haven’t.
What this all demonstrates, alongside a big “I told you so” from those of us who weren’t naïve to the dangers of a Biden nomination, is that the Obama era revolving door of lobbying and corporate whitewashing of policy is set to continue, and the American people will suffer as a result.
Hard working Americans disillusioned with the system don’t care about “competent” insider technocrats, they want populist fighters who’ll take on the vested interests and deliver for them. President Biden may be a last hurrah for the Democratic establishment, President Sanders would have saved Democrats as a viable party.