Thomas Frank: None of the Bankers Think Hillary Clinton Believes Her Populism,

[Ferd Berfel]

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/36010-none-of-the-bankers-think-hillary-clinton-believes-her-populism-a-financial-journalist-wrote#14630895091961&action=collapse_widget&id=0&data=

What is the core philosophy of today's Democratic Party and does it serve anyone's interests other than a wealthy elite? Thomas Frank lays bare Democrats' abandonment of their purported values -- and the role this has played in entrenching economic inequality -- in his sardonic new book, Listen, Liberal. Order your copy by making a donation to Truthout today!

Thomas Frank, Metropolitan Books: A puzzling and contradictory microclimate of virtue surrounds Hillary Rodham Clinton -- a mystic bond between high-achieving US professionals and the planet's most victimized people. Nothing is more characteristic of the liberal class than its members' sense of their own elevated goodness.

"You see corporations making record profits, with CEOs making record pay, but your paychecks have barely budged," Hillary declared in June 2015, launching her presidential campaign. "Prosperity can't be just for CEOs and hedge fund managers." On she talked as the months rolled by, pronouncing in her careful way the rote denunciations of Wall Street that were supposed to make the crowds roar and the financiers tremble.

"None of them think she really means her populism," wrote a prominent business journalist in 2014 about the bankers and Hillary. The Clinton Foundation has actually held meetings at the headquarters of Goldman Sachs, he points out. He quotes another Morgan Stanley officer, who believes that "like her husband, [Hillary] will govern from the center, and work to get things done, and be capable of garnering support across different groups, including working with Republicans."

How are the bankers so sure? Possibly because they have read the memoirs of Robert Rubin, the former chairman of Citibank, the former secretary of the Treasury, the former co-head of Goldman Sachs. One of the themes in this book is Rubin's constant war with the populists in the Party and in the Clinton administration -- a struggle in which Hillary was an important ally. Rubin tells how Hillary once helped him to get what he calls "class-laden language" deleted from a presidential speech and also how she helped prevent the Democrats from appealing to "class conflict" in a general election -- on the grounds that it "is not an effective approach" to the "swing voters in the middle of the electorate."

[BillZBubb]

1. The bankers know Hillary a lot better than her supporters do.

She's been with them for decades. No doubt she has discussed with a few of the more prominent bankers the fact that to win the Democratic nomination she will have to say things she doesn't really mean, but not to worry. She shares their values. They know it.

[Ferd Berfel]

2. hence the problem with the speeches

[Ferd Berfel]

3. DO I need to add - I don't believe her Populism either

it's an election sham

[Arugula Latte]

4. She's so obviously phony and insincere. She says she supports something if she perceives it to be

politically expedient for her at the time. Then she quickly "evolves" once circumstances change.

[Ferd Berfel]

6. and this is why I don't, and many people don't, Trust her.

Remember the carnival con game rant?

Round and round she goes, Where she stops, nobody knows

[cali]

5. She really is an appalling phony. In addition to being a corrupt liar.

[amborin]

7. She double-crossed voters re: Colombia FTA: told them she opposed, then lobbied & voted FOR it

[CompanyFirstSergeant]

8. "Nothing is more characteristic of the liberal class.....

......than its members' sense of their own elevated goodness."

That's a serious statement that deserves it's own discussion.