On The Verge of the Trump Era Plutocracy:
A First Test of How the Two Parties Will Govern On Behalf of The Working Class...or Not. Featuring "Johnny Come Lately" (Or, Should I Say, "Joey Come Lately)?"
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.
Some advice for social media in the Trump era: ditch your Facebook and Twitter accounts for safer, more constructive spaces (whether it is Bluesky, Mastodon, Tumblr, GroupMe, or some blogosphere arenas). From life experience, let me say many of these social media platforms, Meta and X especially, are totally unproductive for political discourse. And it’s time for Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to take a major revenue hit for prioritizing profits over lives.
For now, let’s leave it at that, though either I or my brother may have more coming on the subject soon. Today, I wanted to talk about two subjects closely related to one another:
First, you may have heard of the old saying “Johnny come lately.” Or you may have heard the lyric from the Eagles song “New Kid in Town.”
Well, meet “Joey come lately,” Joey meaning DNC Vice Chair candidate Joe Paolino, real estate owner of much of Downtown Providence, former US Ambassador to Malta, and failed two-time candidate for statewide office (he also lost a Mayoral race in 2002 to then-upstart challenger, RI State Rep. David Cicilline).
I do agree with Paolino’s recent comments coming around to have the party focus on working class interests. And while many of those basic comments, even as platitudes, are ones I easily agree with, it is pretty easy to say the candidate himself hasn’t walked the walk.
To be sure, I would by no means compare Mr. Paolino to the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or even Mark Zuckerberg. I just don’t think Paolino truly understands the working man’s plight—and the struggle and despair that people feel out there. Especially with a net worth in the multi-million dollars range, a chunk of it inherited from family. Why do I say that?
For starters, he has been a vocal proponent of dismantling the Kennedy Plaza bus terminals, and moving them away from his real estate properties. For those of you not from Rhode Island, those bus terminals in downtown Providence are the main mode of transportation for our working poor, working-class, and disabled riders. Why did he support these measures? Well, so that the values on his already-expensive properties could rise even more.
The only problem is it would displace all those lower-income riders who would have a harder time accessing a different location away from the city’s center. It also would clear out the homeless in the area. Or more precisely—as RI podcaster Bill Bartholomew put it—those people who have no family members to say with or any indoor shelters to go to, and who are offered very little support generally from city and state officials already.
Paolino supported the proposal to dismantle the bus hub in Kennedy Plaza, along with Governor Gina Raimondo (the pro-corporate Queen of Rhode Island) and Mayor Jorge Elorza (the pro-school choice point man of Rhode Island). Their luckily unsuccessful plan was created with an iron fist and no public input whatsoever. Hardly the good start needed to woo over working poor, working class, and middle class voters across this country.
Besides, Mr. Paolino’s dismal electoral track record should teach us what not to do in a campaign—and teach us why we should not elect him for DNC Vice Chair. Beyond losing three times for office since 1990 (sure, many successful politicians have lost an office or two), the more interesting story was of how he blew a shoo-in to win a congressional seat as the 1996 Democratic primary frontrunner.
That campaign imploded over a question on supporting bilingual education and having English as the official national language. His comparison of bilingual education to welfare & public housing has been widely reported and clearly alienated the growing Hispanic & Latino community at the time, which turned out in force that year. In fact, largely due to that gaffe, Paolino lost a very winnable race as the party-endorsed frontrunner by double digits.
6 years later, Paolino lost a bid to regain his old job as Mayor, which he held for 6 years from 1984 to 1990 (a period lodged in between the two Buddy Cianci eras spanning 1974 to 2002).
As you could infer from the Kennedy Plaza tale, Paolino is a very big fan of US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who has practically been exposed top to bottom as a total political grifter and swindler on this blog. He still wants Raimondo to run for President in 2028. To give Paolino some credit, at least he has stayed and served in the community regularly—and not simply used the state as a stepping stone and prop for higher office like Raimondo did. But Gina Raimondo is no Bruce Sundlun, contrary to the comparisons.
And finally, Paolino’s old way of thinking is beyond the times. It is as simple as that.
Indeed, Mr. Paolino has gone out on a limb, repeatedly and consistently, to say Democrats need to reform themselves, much like Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council did in the 80s and 90s. He makes no mention of the fact that the party lost its historically dominant foothold in Congress and in the states ever since 1994, or that Republicans largely have dictated policy priorities from that point on. They have done so with the help of the ever-expanding, ever-conservative, and ever-corrupt US Supreme Court. Paolino does not even make the reality check connection that Hillary Clinton herself lost in 2016, losing many places Bill Clinton had won in the 1990s (including 11 states that elected him twice, but voted for Trump in 2016 instead).
If that “move to the center” model was the real deal, Hillary Clinton should have won. Democrats who have fit the mold of the DLC playbook since 1992, straying from the ambitions of solving big problems as Roosevelt and Johnson (and later, Biden) embraced, should have won more elections, including the very close ones like 2000, 2004, 2016 and 2024, if the strategy truly and consistently reaped victory. The fact is the corporate-centric consensus no longer works, either in government policy or in electoral politics. Al Gore and John Kerry were the first unfortunate (and somewhat undeserving) victims of an increasingly tainted Democratic Party brand.
The Democratic Party of wealthy coastal elites and cozy business interests led by the Clintons, Bloomberg, Raimondo, Rahm Emanuel, Robert Rubin, Doug Schoen, and Dick Morris has to be a thing of the past left behind in the history books for a new winning formula.
And so, while Joe Paolino is unlikely to influence—never mind win—the DNC Vice Chair race, this example is emblematic of the challenges Democrats face. Will they position themselves as working class representatives once again, with an ear to the needs of the community? And with open and humble minds?
We need to take the message of 2024 for what it was on the economy and immigration, but not empower Trump otherwise on silly, nonsensical, and irrelevant issues, like raiding the Panama Canal, or seizing Greenland, or ranting online at 4:30 AM in the morning. Authenticity can’t be bought through pandering, checks, donations, or expenditures. It must be earned brick by brick.
As for the Republican politicians: count me as even less hopeful for them. The best way to describe them is to say all they really do is showboat their macho power and simple talk, with nothing to deliver otherwise. A prediction of mine too. Let me count some of the ways the hypocrisy shines through.
Take Dr. Mehmet Oz (having the Dr. title for him is much like calling me a physicist or astronaut). But beyond hydroxychloroquine, miracle berries, green coffee bean extracts, and red palm oil, he is even more of a charlatan and phony than he may otherwise lead on.
As the potential new Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Dr. Oz will champion privatized and profitable healthcare options like Medicare (Dis) Advantage. What’s notable is he already has $600,000 worth of stock in two of the largest for-profit Medicare Advantage providers.
Next, he might go on a limb to allow private equity to buy out local hospitals across the country. In Rhode Island, we are presently experiencing a for-profit hospital chain placing two hospitals in bankruptcy. If you think the American people really love the American healthcare system now, wait till Dr. Oz implements this sort of policy.
Incoming Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy? He became an airline industry lobbyist after leaving Congress. Anyone want to take a bet where he stands on airline deregulation, especially against consumers and air safety standards?
Energy Secretary nominee Chris Wright is the CEO of the second largest hydraulic fracturing company in the country. He is a man who drank fracking fluid to suggest it is not dangerous and denied the existence of both the climate crisis and the clean energy transition.
Education Secretary pick Linda McMahon has more experience in wrestling than in education. But, she was a key administrator for Trump’s DC pet think tank on such matters. Good enough?
How about the IRS Commissioner nominee Billy Long? He is a true DC swamp creature, a former Missouri Congressman with no experience in tax, law, or accounting, who supported a 30% sales tax, and wanted to investigate the Humane Society for supporting puppies in the Missouri puppy mills (sorry Levi Fetterman).
While we’re at it, why not just pick another former Congressman, NY’s Lee Zeldin, a climate denier, to head the Environmental Protection Agency?
Yet there’s another one of many DC swamp creatures coming for the ride, former Georgia Congressman Doug Collins to lead the VA. He wants to cut and privatize veterans’ VA health care benefits (so does Defense nominee, axe thrower, and sexual harasser/predator Pete Hegseth).
For the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, the man who oversaw the creation of Project 2025 (yes, the one Trump knew nothing about). A nomination that came only after Trump tried distancing himself from the Heritage Foundation blueprint in 2024.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Postmaster pick Louis DeJoy’s “reforms” have now been shown to drastically hurt rural customers. Good ol’ DeJoy even earned the scrutiny of Josh Hawley of all people. He is likely to stay on for this Trump term.
And finally, Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi. Bondi as Florida AG dropped a lawsuit against Trump University after Trump gave $25,000 via his fake charity to her 2014 reelection campaign. She fought to repeal the Affordable Care Act and its pre-existing conditions protections, and has been a vociferous death penalty supporter and 2020 election denier. Bondi also was a profound DC lobbyist not just for companies like Amazon and Uber, but also foreign governments such as Qatar, Zimbabwe, and Kosovo.
Oh, how could I not mention the next Chief of Staff was a lobbyist on behalf of radioactive waste management, foreign copper mining, the tobacco industry, and even one of Nigeria’s socially conservative political parties?
Hiring the wealthiest Cabinet ever is quite a way to build the working class champion mantra in the first 100 days. Makes you wonder what type of policies these plutocrats are going to force on the American public soon enough.
Lots of information in the article.