19
votes
Buttigieg campaign fails to list several power brokers in recent donor disclosure
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Authors
- Max Moran / Independent Media Institute, Norman Solomon, Scott Ritter
- Published
- Dec 19 2019
- Word count
- 774 words
I'm trying my best to interpret his missteps as charitably as I can, but he keeps making the same kinds of mistakes, which bugs the hell out of me. There just seems to be a reflexive aversion to transparency within his campaign.
I have a hard time believing the Douglass Plan thing was an intentional lie just because it's so obvious that I don't think any normal person would have the chutzpah to float such an obviously debunkable fib. But how does something like that happen? How do you get an entire bit of marketing copy out the door with things in them that are not only debatable or exaggerations, but literally the opposite of true!? What kind of process of culture leads to something like that happening?
If I read The Intercept's article correctly, the whole "opt-out if you don't want to be listed as a sponsor" process regarding endorsement of the Douglass Plan was gut-churningly sketchy.
At best, no one in the Buttigieg campaign proofread the sponsor list, an amateurish error.
At worst, they fudged it assuming no one would check, they wouldn't get caught, and no one would be bothered if the fabrication was found out.
The mislabeled and misrepresented South Carolina Black patrons have been seriously wronged. It's horribly dismissive of both individual and community rights and reputations, as well as execrable campaign management.
Oh, so basically sleazy, racketeering style crap? Ugh this is gross. And that Douglass Plan came out even before he hit his stride by tacking to the "billionaire friendly" lane.
I really, really don't want to be governed by someone who's intentionally checked as many boxes as possible on the "Destined To Be U.S. President" form, yet has to fabricate the appearance of an adequate political coalition. Why is Buttigieg in such a hurry that he can't achieve this legitimately?
Yeah, I think this book characterizes his archetype well.
Haven't read that yet, but long ago, I'd read this. I'm a little frightened of the idea that there's a standard formula for participation in a theoretically meritocratic ruling class, given adequate charisma.
Harvard, Oxford, ÈNA... the prep schools for politicians seem to have produced generations of neoliberal, militarist groupthinkers whose preferred strategies and blind spots have led to the current decline of Western democracy.
Full disclosure, I've gone through the same elite institution pedigree myself. The deal is that the institutions themselves produce plenty of heterodox thinkers, but we tend not to get the best paying jobs out of it. This is largely because most of us were too young and inexperienced at the time to know how to get into decision-making roles over the long run.
The careerist, gunner types are the ones who get there, and they get there because there are institutions that provide prestigious internships and fellowships and the like for the graduates of these schools who toe a friendly line.
These pipelines aren't available for people who aren't nakedly careerist, and most of us were too young during this "grooming" phase to actually have the kind of hard-nosed realism and pragmatism we would have needed to break into the system from a side-channel. And the few of us who do are so outnumbered that it's not even worth it to fight every day, especially when you've got a family and debts to pay.
I think basically all my classmates who were always skeptical of the consensus ideas we were learning have either given up the career tracks and gone into academia, given up the public service track and gone into industry (usually tech, like me), or have the public service job but are moved into a bureaucratic sinecure where they execute on operational things rather than making strategic decisions.
Thanks for clarifying, and I'm glad you're here!
It's the "debts to pay" part, I think, that really encourages naked careerism and toeing the line (or abandoning the idea of low-paid public service) these days, among those who aren't already hereditary members of the political and economic aristocracy. Likely more of an issue in the U.S. and U.K. than Europe.
Well, he's not gonna be a biden competitor with that his track tecord.
We still really need a more sensible 'centrist' candidate than biden if they end up being nominee though and Pete really could have been that person.
Biden is from Delaware which is basically a subsidiary of DuPont. You can't advance in that state's politics without laying down with some dirty dogs.
?
Delaware is a teeny tiny state essentially run by a big chemical-producing corporation called DuPont. They have the most business-friendly legal environment in the country, which is why a lot of corporations are based in PO Boxes in the state. They fund candidates on both sides of the aisle, so to be a successful politician from Delaware you have to toe the line.
Here is some more info
The big donor 'private' fund raisers did him in. I'm not sure biden has done the same but it just seems scummy when everyone is denouncing big donors
Biden has a long history of holding private fundraisers for top donors.
Here's video from my personal favorite, in which, in 2006, he told America's richest he supports a border fence """to stop drugs""" (which mostly are smuggled on vehicles through legal ports of entry)
Joe Biden is a moderate Republican in terms of his legislative history. He should do the Democrats a favor and run as one.
These sorts of exaggerations don't help. The truth is, the parties didn't diverge to the extent they are today until basically the Bush Administration. Biden, like basically everyone his age, has been tacking significantly to the left since the 80s and 90s. Cherry-picking individual policies that we think are conservative today were solidly centrist and had plenty of champions on the left at the time they came out. The Clinton Crime Bill, for instance, had tons of support within the Black community largely because people didn't fully understand how it was going to pan out and those communities were in a desperation mode due to the crack epidemics and crime wave.
Having support from black people and tacking to the left aren't the same thing. Not all black people are socialists. Though more are than have been in the past, say in the 90s.
Centrism is a relative term.
Perhaps I should have said "moderate conservative." This would have made my point clearer. I don't see a single left wing idea in Biden's platform except his nod to unions. He's historically hawkish, doesn't oppose sweeping state surveillance, doesn't oppose the massive concentration of wealth or of corporate power, doesn't propose leftist reforms on policing such as community oversight, and on and on and on.
Okay you don't like calling him a moderate conservative. Fine. I don't think centrism is a good place to be either.
The New Democrat, post-McGovern generation that Biden is a poster child for is on the way out. The people designing Biden's website have been peeking off Sanders' and Warren's papers. The base is mobilizing around progressives. We need candidates with the clout and message that can pull left. Not some milquetoast, go with the wind, no-strong-stance-on anything centrist.
Oh wait I seem to remember a comcast meeting sometime right when he announced
edit: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-2020-campaign-lobbyist-money_n_5cc111dce4b0764d31dc8586
That would be Cory Booker (history of business-friendliness, despite relatively progressive platform now) or Amy Klobuchar, but neither has the national name recognition, nor the white and male qualifying credentials that older constituencies seem to require.
On a lighter note: https://politics.theonion.com/dnc-eases-debate-requirements-to-0-1-above-whatever-co-1840541740