Hillary Clinton and Ronald Reagan appear to share some similarities, noted Salon writer Andrew O’Hehir. They are both corporate lapdogs and, like Reagan, Clinton is becoming the darling hopeful of her respective party, except that Clinton completely sells out against the traditionally populist ideals of the Democratic party and instead dances to the Wall Street organ grinder.
Hillary Clinton’s supporters and aides try to pass her off as a populist like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. She is anything but that. Last week, Clinton went to Boston to speak at an Ameriprise Financial conference where she was substituting for George W. Bush. Yes, that guy. Apparently he got busy painting mediocre self-portraits.
Clinton has spoken for nearly all of the Wall Street heavy hitters: Fidelity, KKR and Co., the Carlyle Group, and Goldman Sachs. She’s also attended events at the Goldman Sachs headquarters. Clinton’s associations paint her as less of a populist heroine, and more of a Wall Street-loving New Democrat, or rather, like Ronald Reagan.
Much like Reagan, as O’Hehir indicates, Clinton, and Obama, “don’t represent … any form of progressive or class-based economic philosophy.” In short, the economic plight of the American people just isn’t a huge priority. Sure, they may talked a big game like Democrats did last year, but ultimately, the fear of looking like a class-warmonger will temper any dialogue related to income inequality. Clinton has potential campaign contributors to please and butter up.
Will Clinton implement any kind of revolutionary policy that will eventually screw over the middle- and lower-class more than Reagan has? Maybe not. But there’s still a pretty good change, however. One thing is for certain, though. Like Reagan, Hillary Clinton will focus favor on the corporations while the working-classes get overlooked.
Like O’Hehir says, “neither Clinton nor Reagan actually represents what they seem to represent.”
Josh is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire. Follow him on Twitter @dnJdeli.
