While the 2016 Republican candidates are fighting to see how many clowns they can get in the clown car, their Oligarch masters are fighting to see how many feet they can stick in their greedy, selfish, sociopathic mouths. From Politico we get these great words of wisdom from the sleaze bag Oligarch of Home Depot:
“I hope it’s not working,” Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot and major GOP donor, said of populist political appeals. “Because if you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy.”
Langone may rank up there as one of the most disgusting of the Oligarchs, but the 1% is rallying to put down the rebellion.
Keep in mind this is Politico, so take it with a grain of salt, but here's some choice quotes from the article.
the Democratic playbook for the midterms appears in need of a major rewrite — and the pro-business wing of the party is ready to draw up new plans.
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Mayor de Blasio’s hopes to increase taxes on the wealthiest got blown out by Wall Street’s newest hero, New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. And de Blasio is facing major heat from the rich over his opposition to charter schools.
Be careful here, this might just be Politico trying to stir up division among the Democrats. But I view it as another indicator of the serious damage to our democracy the Robert's court did. The only people who can get elected to represent us in our government are people who are filthy rich, or who can raise money from the filthy rich. Our number one goal should be to get all this dirty money out of the political system, and until we do that, we simply have to hope that we get the benevolent filthy rich that care about our country and are empathetic toward the problem of wealth inequality.
But wealthy Republicans — who were having a collective meltdown just two months ago — also say they see signs that the political zeitgeist may be shifting back their way and hope the trend continues.
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previous remarks from venture capitalist Tom Perkins, who likened the actions of some in the Occupy Wall Street movement to the Kristallnacht attacks on Jews in 1938. ... And Langone showed no hesitancy in invoking the Nazis when describing current populist rhetoric.
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Democratic Rep. Jim Himes, whose Connecticut district includes many wealthy Wall Street executives, said the populism associated with de Blasio and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren was never as dominant as the media suggested. “All too often people forget that this is just one politician from Massachusetts and one from New York City and what they say is not going to dominate politics in Arkansas, or Florida or Texas or anywhere else,” Himes said. “Income distribution may be far from ideal, but people don’t necessarily only want to hear about increased taxes on the wealthy.”
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Wall Street Democrats believe Obama is fundamentally sympathetic to that argument. “The energy in the party may be with progressives, but Obama is still the same cool, pragmatic guy he’s always been,” said a Wall Streeter who attended the recent fundraiser with the president at Blackstone Group President Tony James’s Manhattan home. “He’s got liberal values, but he’d always like to cut a deal.”
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“Take the fact that the tea party is kind of on its heels in Congress and that a registered lobbyist won in Florida and that a lot of the party is revolting against this proposed bank tax, and you’d have to conclude that the establishment is not exactly dead,” said one Wall Street Republican, who like many asked not to be identified by name in order to speak freely about his views on the direction of the party.
So don't think the Oligarchs are going to lay down and give up their wealth advantage that allows them to buy politicians that change the rules to keep them in power. But also don't think that all rich people are the selfish and greedy that have bought the Republican party and made them a wholly owned subsidiary of Oligarch Inc.
No matter what issues you consider to be important, as long as we've got this dirty money in our political campaigns, the issues of the wealthiest will take top priority in this country and your issues will take a back seat at best.
Lets hope that we've got enough reporters who will stick a microphone in the face of these Oligarchs and let em speak their mind so everyone can see who these people really are.
UPDATE: Apparently I missed this in the original story. From talking Point memo
On the national level, the shift away from a focus on income inequality and reining in Wall Street stems both from the economy, which is slowly improving, and the dominant issue of the day, which is now the crisis in Ukraine.
The aggressive actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin have eased the anxieties of Wall Streeters sick of being portrayed as the enemy. “We obviously see other things driving the news cycle,” a top industry executive said. “Ukraine keeps the focus off the evil 1 percent, so I guess we have Putin to thank for that. The improving economy helps as well.”