For real, not joking, listen up: Joe Biden thinks that big money might be in charge.
“I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. And this is a dangerous concern. And that’s the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people,” Biden said Jan. 16 in one of a series of swan songs. “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”
That sort of sums up why Biden’s presidency was a disappointment. They never quite got it.
Has he not heard of the grain traders, the meatpackers and the chemical companies?
The malefactors of great wealth described by Teddy Roosevelt never let go. Biden thinks he is on to something.
Who broke up the conglomerates that fix wages and prices?
Not the USDA. Not the FTC. Not the Justice Department. The public wants to drain the swamp but the Biden administration just swatted mosquitoes.
Sure, they meant to get around to it, but didn’t. Tom Vilsack must have thought Merrick Garland was already on the case. They said they would. You want to believe them because they are decent, restrained people.
When Biden warns that a power structure is “taking shape” you know he is out to lunch or not being square with you. Has he not heard of Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling 15 years ago that allowed unlimited dark money to pour into politics? Did he do a damn thing about it?
Things were supposed to be different. Biden had the opportunity to take on the power structure. He should have known how, as an old bull of the Senate. He couldn’t control his own caucus, namely Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Biden could not recast the safety net that Ronald Reagan ripped up. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama never really tried.
They let rural America drift away. Nothing happened west of Interstate 35 in Iowa as the result of Joe Biden being president. The main business is Dollar General or Casey’s, where the tin cup is out for the breast cancer patient who can’t afford the drugs. But they capped insulin costs!
The Democrats told Iowa essentially that they are not interested. The Iowa Caucuses, where Joe Biden was an also-ran for his brand of corporate servitude, were dumped. The senator from Wall Street, Chuck Schumer, was the messenger and certainly not Bernie Sanders, who twice placed atop the Iowa Caucuses but was run off by the corporate wing. Schumer is now the minority leader.
In Iowa, the minority party fell farther behind in the House and the Senate.
Biden’s hand-picked successor Kamala Harris, who fared even worse than Biden in the caucuses, could not beat an opponent with 34 felony convictions.
That’s how it looks from Iowa.
Who runs this state? First, it was the railroads. Nowadays, it’s the consolidated chemical and food companies. They’re working the legislature right now for protections against cancer litigation in our state courts. They will get it, and the Supreme Court in Des Moines is stacked to ratify those protections.
Oligarchs? What oligarchs?
Biden may have been blinded by the fact that he was a senator from Delaware, where all reputable corporate oligarchies are domiciled.
Elon Musk is so obvious that the departing trust-buster wannabe couldn’t ignore him. Biden and Chuck Schumer have been running with the money crowd, too.
Biden can claim credit for leading the USA out of the pandemic. It actually was Nancy Pelosi who came up with the Payroll Protection Program that saved the economy during the worst of times. Trump went along. After that, Biden had his great opportunity to take on the monied few, and he blew it.
Biden is left to issue stern cautions in his coda. We are left with Trump, and a state that has been completely captured by the oligarchs, from the court system to the state universities. That happened a long time ago, while the senator from Delaware voted aye.
Art Cullen is publisher and editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in northwest Iowa (stormlake.com). He won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2017 and is author of the book “Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from America’s Heartland.” Email times@stormlake.com.
From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2025
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