Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton have come out attacking progressive and independent-minded U.S. Democratic presidential candidates.
This is a fine demonstration of the main fault line that divides politics today: the people versus the corporations and their representatives.
Of the ten or so Democratic candidates still running, three have signalled their plan to actually try to represent the American people, albeit with different focuses: Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders.
In worrying signs for America’s entrenched interests, the corporation-endorsed candidates have been faring moderately to badly, while Yang, Gabbard and Sanders have been steadily growing their support and message.
In a recent speech to a supposedly Left-wing think tank funded by billionaire currency manipulator George Soros, Barrack Obama attacked the progressive shift taking place in the Democratic field, warning presidential hopefuls not to move too far Left. Average voters “just don’t want to see crazy stuff”, he said. Obama was presumably referencing calls for universal healthcare, a non-interventionist foreign policy, higher corporate taxes, a financial transaction tax and other proposals that would compel America’s corporations to share just a little more of the gigantic pie.
Obama said:
The average American doesn't think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it. We have to be rooted in reality and the fact that voters, including the Democratic voters and certainly persuadable independents or even moderate Republicans are not driven by the same views that are reflected on certain, you know, left-leaning Twitter feeds. Or the activist wing of our party.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has taken a different tack, accusing Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard and Green Party politician Jill Stein of being Russian assets.
In a bizarre and much-publicised radio interview, Clinton said of Tulsi Gabbard:
I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on someone who’s currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favourite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far. That’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she’s also a Russian asset. Yeah, she’s a Russian asset — I mean, totally.
More recently, Hillary appeared on Howard Stern’s Show and aimed similarly absurd smears at Bernie Sanders:
“You know, basically, [the Russians] were like, hey, let's do everything we can to elect Donald Trump. Those are words. And they also said Bernie Sanders, but, you know, that's for another day.”
She also couldn’t help taking a swipe at Bernie Sanders’ campaign to make college tuition-free, comparing the promise to “chocolate milk for everybody”.
There is real doubt in the U.S. whether a “centrist” figure like Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren can beat Trump in 2020, but this doesn’t matter to establishment Democrats. What matters is that the structures designed to empower corporations and disempower the people are maintained.
America’s corporate establishment is panicking at the revival of progressive politics, and they’re throwing everything they’ve got at representatives of this movement. In the end – as many analysts have pointed out – the big donors and special interests supporting establishment Democrats would rather see Trump stay in the White House over these progressive alternatives.
Daniel Safi has an honours degree in history and politics and now works as a music teacher.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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