Raw Story: 'It was a mistake': Former Obama official admits key error that led to Trump's rise

[Dennis Donovan]

Raw Story - 'It was a mistake': Former Obama official admits key error that led to Trump's rise

Brad Reed
December 17, 2024 11:12AM ET

Rahm Emanuel, the former White House chief of staff to President Barack Obama, made a revealing admission about a key mistake he and his one-time boss made that he thinks led to the rise of Donald Trump.

Writing in the Washington Post, Emanuel acknowledged that the Obama administration's failure to punish the Wall Street CEOs whose reckless greed crashed the American economy in 2008 led to a major disillusionment with the American political establishment that allowed someone like Trump to slide into the picture offering an alternative.

"Not only was no one held accountable, but the same bankers who engineered the crisis were aggrieved at the suggestion of diminished bonuses and government intervention," Emanuel wrote. "It was a mistake not to apply Old Testament justice to the bankers during the Obama administration, as some had called for at the time."

That said, Emanuel also believes that Trump's cozy ties to big business and his zeal for shoveling out more tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy provide Democrats with an opportunity to regain public trust as the party of genuine economic populism.

"Far from draining the swamp, Trump and his administration will soon be bathing in it," he argues. "We need to reveal the populist Trump as a plutocrat. The hypocrisy will be there in the upcoming tax legislation and slashed regulations for the powerful — all paid for by the middle class.

/snip

[Walleye]

1. I will really be glad when and if they ever retire the "draining the swamp" metaphor

It doesn’t really describe Washington, and it’s ecologically unsound

[rampartd]

5. trump just wants to replace the old aligators with his own reptiles. n/t

[Walleye]

6. I say we are dealing with human predators. Leave the rest of the Animal Kingdom out of this.

[erronis]

12. Worms, not reptiles.

But yes, he wants his own type of scum.

[Passages]

2. Sorry but duh.

I highly recommend the series documentary on Bernie Maddoff if you haven't watched it.

No question how terrible the consequences were for his clients but the most horrific piece of information was how the SEC was told in detail how he was doing it and ignored it.

snip:
It was redemption of a sort for Harry Markopolos, a financial analyst-turned-investigator who spent nearly a decade on Madoff's trail — and whose warnings were largely ignored by securities regulators.https://www.npr.org/2010/03/02/124208012/madoff-whistleblower-sec-failed-to-do-the-math


Bernie went to jail, but Markopolos knew then it should have been a much bigger net held to account. So Rahm please stay out of politics.

[sarisataka]

3. Too little and far, far too late

revealing the hypocrisy now doesn't help at all. When one finds all of their cows have been eaten by wolves, going back and closing the barn door is moot.

[EdmondDantes_]

10. I disagree. It's always important to understand where opportunities lie

We have future elections and future financial issues to deal with.

[leftstreet]

4. So, don't run on popular policies, run on Trump Bad. Ugh n/t

[Walleye]

7. Unfortunately, our popular policies can't break through Trump's webs of lies

We are dealing with a category F5 blowhard

[choie]

8. Says Emmanuel in his

quest to become head of the DNC. He's part of the problem.

[NJCher]

14. you know what they say

about the broken clock.

Now the country has been taken over by oligarchs, at least if trump takes office and the Senate approves his cabinet choices. It's a little iffy.

[RANDYWILDMAN]

9. easy to say now

bummer, you didn't get them, both parties had a role in it and neither brought the convictions

[Botany]

11. Obama had solid proof of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and did nothing and didn't even ..

… release the proof because McConnell threatened him.

[irisblue]

13. 2018 Marketplace radio interview with Bernanke, Geithner and Paulson about the crash

[Yes the interviews & the others pissed me off so much that I easily recalled it 6 yrs later]

Source-https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace/bonus-bernanke-geithner-and-paulson-full-interview/

Program is almost an hour & starts with several commercials.



Also sod off Rahm

[Susan Calvin]

15. You are just now figuring that out? nt

[moondust]

16. Partly.

I don't know how much it had to do with his agenda but as the first minority President, IMO Obama had to be careful about what he did to avoid furious (racist) overreaction. Early on he was also busy trying to save the economy.

More broadly:

Obama election --> RACISM --> Tea Party (2009) --> birtherism --> TSF (King Birther)

[BlueTsunami2018]

17. Hard to argue with this.

Those sons of bitches got away with murder. The only people who got hurt in all that were the working people, as usual.

[rickford66]

18. Bailing out the homeowners would have everyone bailed out.

But, screw the homeowners and bail out the banks.

[Ruby the Liberal]

19. Rahm is absolutely right IMO

The Obama Admin was transparent and it didn't sit well with a lot of people.

Trump will be building a pipeline to funnel the Treasury to Wall Street while telling his minions that this is a great thing because it will make them all rich. And they wont even ask questions.