Rising Newsletter: Which Neoliberal Is Next?
Kamala Drops Out, France Erupts, Bloomberg Lets Cat Out Of The Bag
Hello #Risers! Welcome to our newsletter. If you haven’t already, tell your friends to sign up by sharing the link to this post!
As promised every Friday we’ll tell you what our favorite segments of the week are, give you a written and expanded version of #RisingQs, and give you our weekly takeaways. If there’s anything you love, like, dislike, or hate don’t hesitate to reply to this email with your thoughts!
Favorite Segments Of The Week
1) Professor Richard Wolff
Why: France faced it’s largest protests in decades with 800,000 in the streets over threatened pension cuts by their neoliberal technocrat President Emmanuel Macron. Professor Wolff helped put the massive French in global context, connecting it to a wave of working class uprisings and sound the alarm for a what could happen under a neoliberal administration here in the US.
2) Nina Turner
Why: We always get excited when Sanders National Campaign Co-Chair Senator Nina Turner stops by Rising. She never holds back. In part 1 of our interview with her, she eviscerates Democrats for taking the black community for granted and challenges Biden to not take their support for granted. Nina is frequently in South Carolina on behalf of the Sanders campaign so she sees up close the efforts (or lack thereof) that campaigns are making to win black voters.
3) Trita Parsi
Why: Iraq’s Prime Minister just stepped down and Iran just brutally cracked down on their own protesters, killing hundreds (that we know of). No one knows what’s going on in the region better than Trita Parsi who warned that the Trump Administration’s economic sanctions could well end up pushing into power a hardline regime that is likely to be more belligerent and never negotiate.
Expanded #RisingQs
1)
Answer (from both): Bloomberg or Pete may take a few points from Biden but without someone attacking him directly, I think we will see a coalescing behind Biden over the coming weeks. As Krystal writes in her takeaway below, the establishment is starting to line up behind him and for the first time ever, the professional left types on Twitter are actually starting to have his back. Meanwhile, media scrutiny is coming to Pete for the first time ever and when you are one of these candidates who counts on affluent white support, you live and die by the New York Times editorial board.
2)
Answer (from Krystal): There are so many to choose from, I think I’ll go with this New York Times article about Tulsi’s white pantsuit. When Hillary wore a white pantsuit they wrote about how incredible and powerful and trailblazing it was or whatever. When Tulsi wore it they said it “left a chill” (because calling a woman frosty or chilly isn’t remotely sexist). “Her white suits are not the white suits of Ms. Clinton, nor even the white of Ms. Williamson, whose early appearances in the shade often seemed tied to her wellness gospel and ideas of renewal and rebirth. Rather, they are the white of avenging angels and flaming swords, of somewhat combative righteousness (also cult leaders).” When you don’t want to criticize the substance, find something, anything to use to smear.
Answer: (from Saagar): The most infuriating article I read this year was from The New York Times when they were celebrating the increasing number of jobs for women in distressed areas that saw huge losses of coal mining jobs for men.
The women featured in the article were mostly working lower wage jobs in the healthcare sector and attempting to care for their male family members who remained unemployed. The jobs they secured did not have the same level of benefits and the sheer desperation of the families involved came through despite the disingenuous framing.
It really showed me how destructive and heartless identitarian politics can be.
3)
Answer (from both): It’s hilarious all the people crying about the debate stage will be absolutely silent whenever Andrew Yang or Tulsi Gabbard eventually qualify. It just goes to show how empty so much of their identity politics ideology is really a mask for neoliberalism.
They only want candidates of color who fit into their box.
Weekly Takeaways
Krystal’s Takeaway: The Establishment is lining up behind Joe
John Kerry endorsed Joe Biden this week. Now on one hand, who cares? They share a neoliberal world view and hawkish foreign policy and are mutually complicit in architecting the current Democratic Party morass. On the other hand, Kerry’s endorsement is part of a broader trend that may signal the Establishment is finally taking Dr. Jill Biden’s advice. They may not love Joe Biden, but they need to “swallow a little bit” and back Joe.
After all, they see some of the same flaws and weaknesses we do in Joe in terms of his verbal incontinence and failing mental acuity. I’m sure this week’s meltdown where he called a voter “fat” (the campaign claims he was saying: “Look facts” LMAO) is probably not giving them a lot of confidence. Not to mention, the Obama people certainly don’t love the idea of a blundering old white guy carrying on the legacy of their shining brilliant multicultural hero. But none of the final Hail Mary candidates are catching on. Deval was humiliated when only 1 person showed up for his Morehouse College speech.
And Bloomberg’s millions don’t seem to be impressing voters much. Warren was fun for establishment Dems to flirt with. A sort of teenage rebellion “there’s no way I could take you home to mom” candidate. Pete was fun to date when actual commitment felt a ways away, but now that we are well into the holiday season with a January impeachment trial set to suck up all the oxygen right up until the Iowa caucuses, now is the time for the establishment to get serious. In Jill’s words, time to “swallow a little bit” and go all in for Joe.
Saagar’s Takeaway:
Saagar’s Takeaway:
Monday was a day of reckoning for corporate media when the Trump campaign announced that it would no longer credential reporters from Bloomberg News after the outlet openly admitted it would not investigate Mike Bloomberg while he ran for President along with any of his rivals in the Democratic race.
The move predictably was met with outrage from the media class who painted it as an attack on them all when what it really did was reveal the alliance between our current corporate media giants and those who are in power. It is absolutely laughable to think that a news organization which bears a Democratic presidential candidate’s name can fairly cover the sitting President of the United States.
This goes far beyond the moment of the primary. It highlights the danger of a media class who insists on a day to day basis that it is nothing but fair and objective while it has immense interest in preserving the status quo and the power of its oligarch owners like Jeff Bezos and Michael Bloomberg. The future of media is pretty bleak and its more likely to look like the Bloomberg, Bezos owners will be needed to sustain it so how do we go forward?
Media companies need to be honest with their readers and tell them exactly what they’re all about. They should acknowledge their owners, the interests of their business, and more. This will actually help the legitimacy of their coverage! When they present all of their reporting as *objective* it allows people to rightly point out all of their conflicts of interest to delegitimize their reporting. Telling the truth can take them a long way and it can grant more cross-party legitimacy to their investigations.
In the meantime, we’re doomed to the status quo. The Washington Post, CNN, Bloomberg and others will continue to tell us that it is a conspiracy theory to think that their ownership and control is in anyway tied to their coverage.
As even Bernie Sanders says in this clip from 13 years ago, its important to understand who owns what!