A battle between Wall Street and a small group of mischievous investors on Reddit has given new life to a left-right populist coalition with the potential to shuffle old political alliances across the spectrum, with some Republicans and Democrats standing up for the little one against the financial establishment.
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When Robinhood and other brokers froze stock purchases at video game retailer GameStop, while Reddit users helped raise the price, the negative reaction was quick and bipartisan. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat and liberal darling, protested that restricting retail access “while hedge funds can freely trade shares as they see fit” was “unacceptable”.
“I totally agree,” Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican and leading conservative, agreed on a tweet.
“What we saw, I think with the collapse of GameStop that Wall Street is going through now, these people at home, these day traders, retail investors – they have more criticism, more scrutiny than the people who broke the entire financial market in 2008, and they were rescued. The government saved all these people, ”Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, told Fox News. “I mean, it shows that the solution is inside.”
Hawley added that they were “too big to fail … and now the big hedge funds, they don’t want competition.”
“This whole episode demonstrated the power of technology to democratize access to American financial institutions, ultimately giving many more people a voice in our economic structures,” said Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, in a statement. “It also showed how the cards are against the little man in favor of the billionaire Wall Street Traders.”
Donald Trump Jr., son of the ex-president, also opined, tweeting: “It took less than a day for big technologies, big government and corporate media to take action and start plotting to protect their fellow hedge fund on Wall Street. This is what a manipulated system looks like, folks! ”
“The elites are out of shape because a bunch of ordinary users have figured out how to become billionaires,” said conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. “There are those who can make a lot of money and those who cannot.”
The strange political coalition of comrades on this issue suggests that the populist reaction may not have ended with President Biden’s victory over former President Donald Trump.
“In the concluding section of our book, [Washington Examiner columnist] Salena [Zito] and predicted that politics would not be the last sector of the American economy to be overthrown or at least affected by populist realignment, ”said Brad Todd, Republican political consultant and co-author of The great revolt. “The centralization of American commercial and political leadership, coupled with the simultaneous equal voice baseline provided by technology, has prepared us for all types of organic upheavals.”
The outcry was similar to the coalition that formed against Wall Street bailouts after the 2008 financial crisis. Both presidential candidates from the main parties, including eventual winner Barack Obama, joined then President George W. Bush in support to federal assistance for the big banks against the opposition of Occupy Wall Street on the left and the nascent Tea Party on the right.
Some conservatives also supported leftist protests against the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle.
“Only we Americans must decide matters of vital importance to our destiny and our national security,” said Pat Buchanan at the time. “No global organization will be allowed to impose its rules against the sovereignty of the United States of America.”
The perception that the Obama administration did not fully capitalize on public anger at Wall Street helped fuel Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders’ Democratic presidential campaign in 2016. Although a renowned real estate developer and billionaire, Trump took advantage of a similar populist wave for the presidential nomination Republican in 2016 and then to the White House.
In 2016, some Sanders voters did support Trump in the general election. Others stayed at home or voted for third-party candidates, such as Green Party nominee Jill Stein, helping Trump defeat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 in critical states of the Rust Belt. Last year, these voters helped Biden cross the finish line. But Biden brought in some business-friendly Democrats in his government, like Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who received more than $ 800 for a hedge fund involved in the GameStop controversy. The president himself represented Delaware, a major banking state, in the Senate for 36 years before becoming Obama’s vice president.
Even the struggle between Robinhood and GameStop underscored how difficult bipartisan cooperation can be in today’s polarized climate. Ocasio-Cortez promptly tweeted that she did not want Cruz’s help, blaming the Texan’s support for the electoral challenges to the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol. Hawley was an ally of Cruz in that debate.
However, the potential for similar future discussions remains high.
“Everyone in America now has all the knowledge of the world in their pockets and the ability to connect with anyone who sees them in the same way – and make those opinions known to elites in any industry,” said Todd.
Tag: News, White House, Wall Street, Occupy Wall Street, Tea Party, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley
Original Author: W. James Antle III
Original location: How Wall Street’s fight for GameStop rekindled the populist coalition
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