No Lesson Learned – Corpocrats

The rich and the right want to dynamite Dodd-Frank – and Democrats are helping them do it | The Guardian Opinion |

Perhaps it’s not so surprising that the Democratic establishment hasn’t learned the lessons of its failure. In an economy hollowed out by the Great Recession, legacy Democrats lurch, occasionally, in a populist direction before retreating to where they are most comfortable: doing favors for the rich in exchange for campaign donations. Democrats and Republicans can only come together to feather the nests of the rich and powerful. Weakening Dodd-Frank confirms the worst suspicions of any cynical voter – that the political class really is colluding to screw them over.

…
What Jon Tester [D-MT] doesn’t understand is that this “bipartisan work” will not “rub off” on Congress. This bill only exists because the largest funders of the Democratic party want it to exist. Big donors on the Republican side will kill efforts to ban assault weapons, fix our healthcare system or end our reliance on fossil fuels.

There is only bipartisanship when the rich demand it. Where no demand exists, the war commences. And make no mistake, 21st-century American politics is war.

If you are not winning, you are losing. Republicans know this well. It’s why they blocked Obama from appointing a supreme court justice and gambled on Trump’s victory, paving the way for decades of a Neil Gorsuch supreme court. It’s why Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader of the Senate, vowed early in Obama’s tenure to erode his agenda wherever possible.

Corporate welfare for bad-behaving banks is immoral. It’s also politically stupid. Republicans will do Democrats no new favors. Voters will not flock to the Democratic brand.

It will be seen simply for what it is: a giveaway to those who least deserve it.

h/t Marie 3

More below the fold …

○ Tempers are flaring as Democrats fight over legislation to loosen financial regulations | Politico |