Wall Street Wasn’t Kidding When They Forbade Warren As A Running Mate

When Wall Street calls, Hillary listens. And when rumors abounded a few months ago that Clinton was considering the Bernie-friendly, enemy-of-the-banks Elizabeth Warren, Wall Street made it clear in the mainstream media that Warren was not an option.

While Hillary was throwing up her hands in exasperation at the mere suggestion that all the money she had taken from Wall Street over the years would impede her ability to make good on her policy to reform Wall Street, Wall Street was not interested in playing along with her “They don’t control me!” narrative. The mere suggestion of Warren as a running mate was shot down, despite the awkward inferences.

People kindly said at the time, “Oh, this is when she’ll show the world she might take their money but she doesn’t play their game. She’ll bring in Warren, with two fingers to the banks, just you wait and see.”

We waited. And now we know. She didn’t go with Warren (despite the Massachusetts senator making it abundantly clear that she was intrigued by the possibility). She didn’t even go with a progressive on banks or on anything else for that matter. In two great big fingers to the progressive left, she picked Tim Kaine, who recently went in to bat for Wall Street asking for even less regulation.

He is also a hawkish war advocate, an anti-abortion Catholic; relentlessly pro-TPP, going so far as to call opponents “losers”; undid unions and expanded offshore oil drilling and “clean coal” in his home state of Virginia — the list goes on.

Yahoo Finance called him “a Democrat Wall Street can like.”

#ClintonKaine Remember, the moneyed donors wanted a bank-friendly pick: https://t.co/ESWQFd7AQV

— other95 (@other95) July 23, 2016

In a year when being anti-TPP and anti-Wall Street is clearly a major vote-winning issue and fueled an un-chartered and wildly enthusiastic ballooning of grass-roots support for the Democrats through the campaign of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, Hillary has made an uncharacteristically dangerous political choice in Kaine. As Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Committee, told the New York Times before the announcement on Thursday, “Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential pick will be seen by many as a proxy for how she will govern — boldly, or cautiously? The wrong pick could deflate energy among potential donors and volunteers, hurting Democratic efforts to win the White House.”

Hillary Clinton has chosen to deflate her campaign and hurt the Democrats’ efforts to win the White House in order to appease Wall Street. Isn’t that interesting?

So here we are. Wall Street has made it very clear who runs things, and it’s not the will of the people. It’s not even the president. In the most blatant act of domination and corruption, in the broad, broad daylight of the mainstream media, Wall Street issued an outrageous order to a presidential candidate, an order that was not in the best interest of her, her campaign, or the country; and she didn’t even put up a fight.

We can consider the rest of her policies redundant now too. As Obama said in 2008, she will say anything and do nothing.

Hours before Hillary Clinton picked Tim Kaine as VP, he praised the TPP, which she claims to oppose https://t.co/tGcKp8N0oP

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) July 23, 2016

It really is a bad day for democracy. And yet, there is a light. B.B. (Before Bernie) this would go unnoticed by all but the most nerdy of politico junkies. Bernie awakened 11 million sets of eyes to the political process in the United States, and they all saw this. What would have slipped under the radar in 2015 is the news of the day in 2016.

And that’s something to be very grateful for. The oligarchy may be in full stretch, but at least it is no longer operating in darkness. It’s disconcerting to see how braggard-esque they are comfortable being. Their smugness irks. They clearly don’t think we have the power to stop them even if they are doing it right in front of us.

But they are wrong. They are few. We are many.

Change is coming.

[Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images]