The Establishment Alarm: "First they came for Hillary..."
They can no longer afford to say nothing after Bernie Sanders zeroed in on the large sums of money establishment politicians routinely solicit and receive from Wall Street and the Billionaire class as an issue in the 2016 campaign. It was one thing for Bernie to shout "Enough is enough, the rich can't have it all". There is nothing that makes a Democratic politician uncomfortable in agreeing with that sentiment. It wasn't much more threatening when Bernie condemned a campaign finance system that allows the super wealthy to invest unlimited amounts of money to purchase the political results they want - in the abstract almost all of them agree and many want that changed. But with the last Democratic Debate Bernie turned a page. He began naming names, starting of course with Hillary Clinton and the huge speaking fees she received from Goldman Saches. That made it personal.
The truth is that in our current political environment almost all politicians running for high state or national offices have to either be immensely wealthy themselves, or on very close terms with a number of people who are. Money is the life blood of politics. Election campaigns bleed cash and politicians need frequent transfusions. That's not even talking about the truly corrupt ones who are essentially in this foremost to become quite wealthy themselves. Most of today's politicians are unable to live off the land the way Sanders can. They don't have a clue how to build a real people powered campaign funded by hundred of thousands of small donors. Instead they do what bank robbers have always done - they go to where the money is. In this case banks look forward to these "transactions", they are strategic investments rather that robberies - unless you count the effect on our Democracy.
I think it is making a lot of Democratic politicos of all sorts quite uncomfortable to watch Hillary Clinton get called out before a nation wide audience over the large sums of money she's received and continues to receive from special moneyed interests It starts cutting a little too close to home. Who will the pitch fork mob come after next? That's one reason I think the red baiting has begun, and why it is now a chorus of voices yelling, "Don't you know that he's a SOCIALIST?"
= new reply since forum marked as read
