“House Republicans want to pass massive tax breaks for billionaires and wealthy corporations to benefit the wealthy, the well-off, and the well-connected and to stick the bill with working-class Americans,” House Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries warned NBC News the day before Donald Trump’s inauguration. “One day into his presidency,” Senate Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer told the Senate the day after, “it’s clear Donald Trump’s golden age is not for the working and middle class. His golden age, rather, is for the special interests, for the wealthy elite, and the corporate insiders he promised to take on as president.”
This is all a bit rich. Schumer earned his moniker “D-Wall Street” years ago because of his loyal service to the US financial industry, which has repaid his devotion many times over by showering donations on him and the party he is now the de facto leader of. And Jeffries is also very much a creature of the corporate donor class.
And we’ve been here before. Dusting off the party’s “populist” playbook has been the default move for the Democratic Party in moments of crisis and uncertainty. Take the following quotes.
From 1992:
For more than a decade our government has been rigged in favor of the rich and special interests. While the very wealthiest Americans get richer, middle-class Americans work harder for lower incomes and pay higher taxes to a government that fails to produce what we need: good jobs in a growing economy, world-class education, affordable health care, and safe streets and neighborhoods.
From 2000:
They’re for the powerful. We’re for the people. . . . I know one thing about the job of the president: It is the only job in the Constitution that is charged with…
Auteur: Neal Meyer
