Meeting the DC Special Interests-Part II:
Another Guide to Who Will Define the Washington DC Legislative Landscape, and the Nation, in the New Year.
Feel free to check the entire blog archives from “Political Pulse” & “Salzillo Report” on the 2024 primary cycle, rural outreach, redistricting litigation, base dynamics, campaign organization, the current media landscape, the issues at stake, Project 2025, Build Back Better, the progressive movement, the 2024 Election autopsy, the true story about former 2024 VP contender Gina Raimondo, and much more.
For local Rhode Islanders in the area, there will be a vigil for several of the homeless in the state who have recently passed away this month—including a personal friend of mine.
For those who want to show up in support, come to the State House grounds at 5 PM this upcoming Monday and reach out to the Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project if you want to help the community out in other ways. RIP Diamond.
And Question of the Week: why is it that government shutdowns and almost-government shutdowns always happen on the Republicans’ watch in Congress? And how come it is always the Democrats who bail them out?
For those who did not see Parkland survivor David Hogg’s interview with Kaitlan Collins on CNN, do check it out. It was very telling of the mentality that exists in the consultant class institution more broadly.
Unfortunately, this is an experience I am not totally unfamiliar to myself. It is easy, especially if you are a paid staffer, to say the good news and sugar coat, or even disregard, the warnings signs. It helps keep clientele for sure, and it pays well, but it is a disservice to the candidates, and the party, as Rhode Island insiders know well in how Bob Weygand’s 2000 US Senate campaign was poorly run against GOP incumbent Lincoln Chafee. Imagine telling someone driving off the cliff that they are learning the laws of the road well. That is what it can be like in politics.
It takes courage and mettle to be a leader. In this interview, and his career work, David Hogg is that leader, which is why I enthusiastically support his bid for DNC Vice Chair as a young voter and college student myself. He is a leader we need at this very time.
He is right. It is worth accepting that the donor and consultant classes are themselves special interests, in what they desire and want.
Speaking of that, in September, I did an article on the DC Special Interests. It is worth following up on that:
The Cryptocurrency Industry and Big Tech-As Margaret Brennan and 60 Minutes elaborately noted, the industry has built the most pro-crypto Congress ever imaginable (worth remembering Democrats why you lost the Senate since crypto bet the whole bank to unseat Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown, and Bob Casey while defending Ted Cruz and Rick Scott. Comes in handy when they ask for favorable rules and legislation this time around).
It is also the main contributor to the transformation of Donald Trump, from initial crypto-skeptic to embedded ally with his own bitcoin products.
But there’s more beyond politics and buying elections for legislation. The cryptocurrency industry is a total scam, fraud, and even an outright criminal enterprise (look no less than Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX farce). Not to say crypto and bitcoin doesn’t have any place in our society, but there should be rules over it so ransomware, sanctions evasion, money laundering, human sex trafficking, terrorist activities, and nuclear arsenal funding for North Korea doesn’t take place. If you want to support Hamas, or MS-13, or North Korea, go lick the boots of unregulated Big Crypto. Let them run wild, like RFK Jr. will “with health.”
People have lost money because of scammers like FTX’s Bankman-Fried and SEC securities violator, and snake oil salesman Ripple CEO, Brad Garlinghouse. Never mind that the market itself is dangerously volatile.
I wish Capitol Hill took as much time to please the working class and middle class needs of this country as they do to make life easier and profit margins wider for the crypto sector, and for Big Tech overall, in which Silicon Valley figures are making their regular pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago.
When Democrats think about Silicon Valley, they should remember that it was organized labor and communities of color that rebuilt the party to what it has always been up to this moment as the working class party; not the tech company checkbooks that enjoyed its spoils, and guided the presidential ticket to its ultimate defeat to Trump, again. Reid Hoffman, Pat Gelsinger, Brad Garlinghouse, Mark Cuban, and the like are not the constituencies that need to be represented by either party in Washington DC.
It is worth saying these same tech figures are now supporting Trump’s Inauguration Fund in hopes of less regulation and more rewards. It does not hurt for wealthy individuals and outside special interests to placate both parties by hedging bets to each, which is the strategy crypto and tech are now employing today, and intend to do again in 2026 against both progressives and crypto-skeptic conservatives.
Big Insurance & Pharmaceutical Industry-This is worth reexamining with the recent death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson at the hands of an assassin with a 3D-printed gun and a silencer. Vigilantism is not the solution, to be sure. Two sons today are without a father, and the murder of one person fundamentally does not solve the systemic issues with the health insurance industry.
But maintaining the status quo is not the solution either. The general reaction—or lack thereof—to the crime should tell you everything that you need to know about why Trump won (i.e., on pure anger) and how despised the healthcare system is (to see how this was reflected in our entertainment of even 20 or so years ago, see the portrayal of Wallace Shawn’s Gilbert Huph character from The Incredibles).
Insurance companies today are much like the one portrayed by Supervisor Huph: they will do everything and anything to reject paying for coverage, from the small things to the larger issues. Blue Cross threatened to pull anesthesia coverage during surgeries depending on the length of such operations. UnitedHealthcare denied more claims than any other health insurer, and other companies also refuse to cover drug costs, hospital stays, higher premiums, and offer more unexpected costs people don’t even know about.
It is no debate that insurance companies are one of the fiercest opponents of any healthcare reform, which was why the Affordable Care Act was muddled down as much as it was in 2010 with the help of lobbyist-friendly Democratic accomplices like No Labels’ former Connecticut US Senator, Joe Lieberman. Insurance companies often donate to Congressional Republicans (although Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Gina Raimondo, and Cory Booker are no exceptions either). And, United Health Group backed Donald Trump big time as it stands to benefit from his Agenda 47/Project 2025 platform, which includes expanding the fraudulently greedy, Oz-backed Medicare Advantage program.
Along with Big Pharma (as seen in the DOJ lawsuit against CVS Pharmacy), Big Insurance showcases why there is such an appetite for at least a public option, and in many corners, a Western European-style, single-payer healthcare system without the middlemen, the paperwork, or the administrative nonsense.
Fossil Fuel Industry & Big Utilities-Even when compared to the healthcare sector, no industry stands to benefit from the new administration and Congress more so than the fossil fuel industry. His Secretary of Energy is a fossil fuel executive who denies even the climate science underlying decades of reality and in fact says “fossil fuels are virtuous.” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum himself has been long invested in the oil business, and the industry itself spent $75 million to elect the Trump-Vance ticket after Trump made a $1 billion request.
Fossil fuel industry donors have also donated a record amount of money this year to Congressional GOP Super PACs led by Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Mike Johnson, vastly outpacing donations to Congressional Democrats (and for good reason).
Likewise, it is hard to ignore the greed of Big Utilities, especially in the states, who jack up prices even when they make record profits. Rhode Islanders deal with regular rate hikes every winter.
In Michigan, State Democrats are hoping to ban political donations by government contractors and monopoly utilities. DTE and Consumers Energy give Michigan the most expensive electric rates of any state in the Midwest, all despite having the worst blackout rates in the country outside of California and Texas.
Virginia’s Dominion Energy gave contributions to both parties for its priorities, although it bet unusually high on Terry McAuliffe, who lost in 2021 to current Governor Glenn Youngkin.
Grocery Store Chains & The Food Industry-Market consolidation is something we have seen in manufacturing and agriculture especially. Take no greater example than the failed Kroger-Albertsons merger in the grocery store market. If it had gone through—and it probably would have under Trump—a grocery store market already so dominated by the largest of the supermarket chains would have gotten even worse.
Still, on some things, better late than never. While Michelle Obama and progressive Democrats were ahead of the curve on healthy food, there might finally be a bipartisan support to take on the food industry, especially in the rate of chronic disease present in ultra-processed foods. And yes, this is partially because of RFK Jr,.
But even with the good things, my Trump era motto is, see what they actually do, not what you hear them say.
Growing US Oligarchic Elite Class-The sad truth is much like Russia, the United States has become a highly unequal oligarchy, with Trump’s incoming Cabinet the wealthiest ever in American history.
In 2024, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk donated $277 million to Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, using two political action committees, including one named after the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He is contemplating to spend $100 million more for the United Kingdom’s Nigel Farage and his Reform UK Party, and the German Neo-Nazis.
Fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy vocally supported Trump on the stump, even though his financial support significantly lagged behind Musk.
Both will lead the “Department” of Government Efficiency, which supposedly will try to cut trillions of dollars of waste in the federal government budget. Some of the things they plan to cut, or abolish, include Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Food Stamps, WIC, Head Start, unemployment insurance, veterans’ benefits, pediatric cancer research, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Food & Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Internal Revenue Service, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation established in 1934 during the Depression, while enforcing mass layoffs of federal civil servants and contractors.
You know what will never be on the chopping block of the oligarchs? Musk’s defense contracts through SpaceX and Starlink, or any biotech business Ramaswamy has long invested himself personally in.
The future regulators of the cryptocurrency industry, and of Wall Street and Corporate America at large, will be led by wealthy businessmen and women and extremely rich individuals from those very sectors, from Treasury’s Scott Bessent and Commerce’s Howard Lutnick, to the SEC’s Paul Atkins and the FTC’s Andrew Ferguson (yes, as we predicted here recently, FTC Chair/trust buster/fighter for working people Lina Khan will not be retained in a Trump White House).
And if you are a Trump Family member, you likely will reap the earnings as well. Convicted felon and disbarred attorney Charles Kushner is the next Ambassador to France. Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s former love interest (?) will be the Ambassador to Greece. Massad Boulos, another in-law of the Trump family, will advise Trump on Middle Eastern affairs.
To be sure, we can thank Citizens United (2010) and Shelby County (2013) for getting us to this point where a handful of individuals can flood the airwaves with money and essentially and legally bribe officials with contributions in return for favorable legislation. That is what leads us into this coming era of a Russia-style, right-wing oligarchy, with President Musk as the de facto head of it.
Finally, the Media-The fact is the media is also a special interest, whether it is Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, or otherwise.
When you consider that Warner Bros CEO David Zaslav (who runs CNN) openly says Trump would be good for mergers & acquisitions and then follows up on that by hiring more pro-Trump commentators and laying off actual reporters and staff, that is not a watchdog institution. That is a special interest group.
When Gina Raimondo was being covered, the whole truth was never told; just the good parts that embellished her resume. Whether on 60 Minutes, whether in the editorial pages of the New York Times, or anywhere else. That is a testament to the influence of special interests in our discourse.
And when 90% of US media is run by six international corporations, you have to think that will impact what nonsense (like turkey costumes and botched weather forecasts) gets favored over the real issues at hand, whether it is record poverty and inequality, job outsourcing, or farm closures and the opioid crisis.
That is the institutional problem that we have today, which we can only confront when we admit such a problem does exist.
More on this issue in my next edition…
In the meantime, have a Merry Christmas to all who celebrate next week!
Good lay of the land, Mike.