Jeff Spross writes in The Week that Donald Trump’s new chief strategist Steve Bannon is an “anti-Wall Street populist” who correctly articulated the public’s anger at the 2008 financial crash and subsequent Wall Street bank bailouts. “Trump effectively rode that anger all the way to the White House,” Spross writes.
From The Week:
In the Democrats’ defense, [voting for the bank bailouts] was no easy choice: Either sanction the grossly unjust bank bailouts on the table from Bush, or risk an even more catastrophic collapse while a possible alternative was (maybe) worked out. But that doesn’t change the fact that Democrats did pass the bank bailouts. And when Obama took over and continued to play ball with the banks, he assured the bailouts would be forever politically tied around the Democrats’ neck.
What the Democrats did next was even worse: The Obama administration’s efforts to provide relief to homeowners through the 2009 stimulus were paltry and fell flat. Nor did Obama really push the Federal Housing Finance Agency to start rescuing underwater homeowners. The executive branch’s law enforcers failed to use charges of rampant mortgage fraud to force the banks to write down homeowners’ debt. And of course, they decided to forego prosecuting Wall Street executives.
Is it any wonder much of America thinks Democrats are in thrall to wealthy elites while ignoring the middle and working classes?
Bannon is right that the titans of finance who cratered the U.S. economy were never held accountable. He’s right that regular Americans were largely ignored in the wake of the crash. He’s right that much of this is Democrats’ fault. And he’s especially right that millions of Americans are still mad as hell about it.
Read the rest here.