Neera Tanden and Antony Blinken Personify the 'Moderate' Rot at the Top of the Democratic Party

What's so moderate about being on the take from rich beneficiaries of corporate America while opposing proposals that would curb their profits in order to reduce income inequality and advance social justice?

by Norman Solomon

Sometimes a couple of nominations convey an incoming president’s basic mindset and worldview. That’s how it seems with Joe Biden’s choices to run the Office of Management and Budget and the State Department.

For OMB director, Biden selected corporate centrist Neera Tanden, whose Center for American Progress thrives on the largesse of wealthy donors representing powerful corporate interests. Tanden has been a notably scornful foe of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing; former Sanders speechwriter David Sirota calls her “the single biggest, most aggressive Bernie Sanders critic in the United States.” Who better to oversee the budget of the U.S. government?

For Secretary of State, Biden chose his longtime top foreign-policy adviser, whose frequent support for U.S. warfare included pushing for the disastrous 2011 military intervention in Libya. Antony Blinken is a revolving-door pro who has combined his record of war boosterism with entrepreneurial zeal to personally profit from influence-peddling for weapons sales to the Pentagon. Who better to oversee diplomacy for the U.S. government?

"With few exceptions, Biden's current policy positions are destructively corporate, deferential to obscene concentrations of wealth, woefully inadequate for meeting human needs, and zealously militaristic." Standard news coverage tells us that Tanden and Blinken are “moderates.” But what’s so moderate about being on the take from rich beneficiaries of corporate America while opposing proposals that would curb their profits in order to reduce income inequality and advance social justice? What’s so moderate about serving the military-industrial complex while advocating for massive “defense” spending and what amounts to endless war?

Unless they fail to get Senate confirmation, Tanden and Blinken will shape future history in major ways.

As OMB director, Tanden would head what the Washington Post describes as “the nerve center of the federal government, executing the annual spending plan, setting fiscal and personnel policy for agencies, and overseeing the regulatory process across the executive branch.”

Blinken is ready to be the administration’s most influential figure on foreign policy, bolstered by his longstanding close ties with Biden. As staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Biden chaired the panel’s mid-2002 crucial sham hearings on scenarios for invading Iraq, Blinken helped grease the skids for the catastrophic invasion.

Overall, purported “moderates” Tanden and Blinken have benefited from favorable mass-media coverage since their nominations were announced several weeks ago. Most of the well-documented critical accounts have appeared in progressive outlets such as Common Dreams, Democracy Now, The Daily Poster, In These Times and The American Prospect. But some unappealing aspects of their records have been reported by the mainstream press.

“In her nine years helming Washington’s leading liberal think tank, Neera Tanden mingled with deep-pocketed donors who made their fortunes on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley and in other powerful sectors of corporate America,” the Washington Post reported in early December. “At formal pitches and swanky fundraisers, Tanden personally cultivated the bevy of benefactors fueling the $45 million to $50 million annual budget of the Center for American Progress.”

The Post added: “As OMB director, Tanden would have a hand in policies that touch every part of the economy after years spent courting corporate and foreign donors. These regulatory decisions will have profound implications for a range of U.S. companies, dictating how much they pay in taxes, the barriers they face and whether they benefit from new stimulus programs.”

Blinken’s eagerness to cash in on the warfare state -- when not a formal part of the government’s war-making apparatus -- is well-documented and chilling. In a healthier political culture, Blinken’s shameless insistence on profiteering from military weapons sales, as spelled out in a Nov. 28 New York Times news story, would have sunk his nomination for Secretary of State.

As for Tanden, in recent years her Center for American Progress received between $1.5 million and $3 million from the United Arab Emirates, which is allied with Saudi Arabia in waging a long and murderous war on Yemen. CAP refused to back a Senate resolution calling for the U.S. government to end its military support for that war. On a range of foreign-policy issues, Tanden has shown dedication to militarism again and again and again.

By many accounts, progressive organizing was a key factor in preventing the widely expected nomination of hawkish Michèle Flournoy to be Secretary of Defense. (RootsAction.org, where I’m national director, was part of that organizing effort.) Last week, the withdrawal of torture defender Mike Morell from consideration for CIA director was a victory for activism led by CodePink, Progressive Democrats of America, Witness Against Torture and other groups.

During the first weeks of 2021, such organizing could be effective in helping to derail other nominations. High on the deserving list are Agriculture Secretary nominee Tom “Mr. Monsanto” Vilsack, a loyal ally of corporate Big Ag, and Director of National Intelligence nominee Avril Haines -- whose record as former deputy director of the CIA included working to prevent accountability for agency personnel who engaged in torture, as well as crafting legal rationales for drone strikes that often killed civilians.

Such deplorable nominees don’t tell the whole story of Biden’s incoming team, which includes some decent economic and environmental appointees. “There’s no question that progressive focus on personnel has led to far better outcomes than when Obama put a corporate- and bank-friendly Cabinet together with little resistance,” The American Prospect’s executive editor, David Dayen, correctly pointed out last week. At the same time, none of Biden’s high-level nominees were supporters of the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign or are fully in sync with the progressive wing of the party.

The brighter spots among Joe Biden’s nominations reflect the political wattage that progressives have generated in recent years on a wide array of intertwined matters, from climate to healthcare to economic justice to structural racism. Yet, with few exceptions, Biden’s current policy positions are destructively corporate, deferential to obscene concentrations of wealth, woefully inadequate for meeting human needs, and zealously militaristic. It’s hardly incidental that the list of key White House staff is overwhelmingly dominated by corporate-aligned operatives and PR specialists.

Wishful thinking aside, on vital issue after vital issue, it’s foreseeable that Biden -- and the people in line for the most powerful roles in his administration -- will not do the right thing unless movements can organize effectively enough to make them do it.

Norman Solomon is co-founder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org. His books include "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death" (2006) and "Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State" (2007). The article was first published

It's legislative accomplishment, stupid

A lot of time is being wasted right now gaming the next Congress and 2020 (with ideas good: Sanders-Gabbard; bad: Biden-Murphy; indifferent: "investigate, investigate, investigate"; and ridiculous: Hillary Clinton as Speaker of the House) when what should be happening is making sure the Democrats in the House use the next two years to build a record of achievement by passing meaningful immigration reform; truly affordable, universal health care (Medicare for All); and a massive infrastructure program.

Experience

“I use those skills every day.” -- deputy minority leader Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), on being the only former preschool teacher in the Senate.

Our Feckless Democrats

Ten Democrats thwarted the (albeit mild) effort of Sen. Bernie Sanders and his allies to tap the brake on the permanent war machine.

Note that the celebrated Alabama Dem Doug Jones is on this list of shame, so that was a big win. And look what the people of Rhode Island contributed to this defeat. The ten warmongers are

Menendez (NJ)
Coons (Del.)
Masto (Nev.)
Donnelly (Ind.)
Heitkamp (N.D.)
Manchin (W.V.)
Nelson (Fla.)
Reed (R.I.)
Jones (Ala.)
Whitehouse (R.I.)

On the other hand, five Republicans voted for the bill -- Collins (Me), Daines (Mont), Lee (Utah), Moran (Ks) and Paul (Ky), so there's that.

Well, here's a thing!

"In Missouri’s deep-red 97th General Assembly district, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by a 61-33 margin in 2016. Republican State Representative John McCaherty won reelection in the same year with almost 75 percent of the vote. McCaherty crushed a Libertarian candidate in that race; Democrats didn’t even bother to contest the seat.

"So when McCaherty quit the seat last year to focus on a campaign for Jefferson County Executive, Republicans had little reason to fear they would lose it in a special election. They slated the son of a popular former legislator from the region and he ran on a conservative platform that, local media pointed out, mirrors that of other Republicans in the Show-Me State.

"Then, the 'sure-thing' Republican lost.

"Democrat Mike Revis, a 27-year-old Anheuser-Busch employee who said he was inspired to run because of his frustration with Republican policies that serve 'multi-millionaires who buy influence with elected officials,' swept to victory Tuesday night with a 52-48 margin. That represented a 31-point swing from the 2016 presidential race numbers, and a 37-point swing from the last time a Democrat sought the seat."

The rest of the story:
A pro-union Democrat just won a seat in Missouri that Trump won by a landslide: 35 and Counting! Democrats Flip Another Republican Legislative Seat by John Nichols (The Nation)

Does being a Democrat mean anything?

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) is reportedly under consideration for Energy and Interior secretary, as is Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WVa). Whether the Democrats allow their numbers in the Senate to be reduced so carelessly will provide another measure of how serious they are about thwarting GOP ambitions.

Evidence so far: Not serious.

From the Say Wha? Desk

Is there a generic drug for outrage fatigue?

What's wrong with the Democrats?

“For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.” -- Sen. Chuck Schumer before the election.

How'd that work out for you, Chuck?

FDR: Live Like Him

Letting Big Money and the mainstream media narrow our presidential choice to Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber is the electoral version of letting the terrorists win. We should be asking not who stands a hair taller than Donald Trump but who comes closest to measuring up to Franklin Roosevelt.

"How easily some folks forget that FDR is arguably America's greatest president ever and was an avowed Democratic Socialist. He understood that capitalism can only provide a thriving middle class if there is a mixed economy with 'socialist' programs to provide a safety net for the less fortunate and an even playing field for the rest." -- Occupy Democrats

Know your place

I realize it was unseemly for irascible congressman Alan Grayson to openly lobby for a seat on John Boehner's select committee to "investigate" the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi!, and no doubt speaker-in-exile Nancy Pelosi saw it as a test of her authority (what isn't?), but it's counterproductive not appoint the aggressive former prosecutor to challenge what he called the GOP's "dredging up one fake scandal after another fake scandal"? Pelosi's selection of Elijah Cummings, the ranking member on Darrell Issa's out-of-control and off-the-wall House Oversight Committee, was probably unavoidable, but the rest of the choices -- Adam Smith, Adam Schiff, Linda Sanchez and Tammy Duckworth -- are reliable backbenchers who can be trusted not to make too much of a fuss over GOP bullshit.