The Democrats’ failure to punish “greedy” CEOs for the 2008 financial crash contributed to the rise of Donald Trump, argues Obama’s former White House chief of staff.
Rahm Emanuel, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Japan, criticized the party for being “blind to the rising sea of disillusionment” that has been simmering for years in America, he wrote in a column for the Washington Post titled “The road back to power for Democrats.”
Emanuel, who was Obama’s White House chief of staff from 2009–2010, said the disillusionment began in 2003 with the Iraq War and rumbled on into 2008, where “unchecked greed led to the collapse of the global financial system.”
“Not only was no one held accountable, but the same bankers who engineered the crisis were aggrieved at the suggestion of diminished bonuses and government intervention,” Emanuel said. “It was a mistake not to apply Old Testament justice to the bankers during the Obama administration, as some called for at the time.”
The former Chicago mayor said Trump managed to “channel a nation’s fury” over those years. He pointed to the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as an example of how furious the nation has become.
“The online cheerleading for the killer of a health-care insurance CEO in New York City is just more evidence of this seething, populist anger,” he said.
The only top bankers to receive a sentence was Kareem Serageldin, a former Wall Street bank at Credit Suisse.
The Obama administration was heavily criticized for not going after the architects of the 2008 crash, which was triggered by shaky subprime mortgage schemes that made banks and their executives fortune until it all came toppling down with consequences around the world.
Eric Holder, the former attorney general, previously insisted that the Department of Justice did not have the evidence it needed to prosecute.
“I think you have to understand, if we could have made those cases, we certainly would have,” Holder told NBC’s Seth Meyers back in 2016. “These are the kind of things that are career-defining. People come to the Justice Department to make these kind of cases. But given the statutes we had to work with and the burdens of proof we had to meet, we were simply unable to do that.”
In his column, Emanuel also made a subtle dig at Kamala Harris when he wrote how “campaigns of joy in an era of rage” don’t win elections.
“November was a jarring reminder that misjudging the mood of a nation can be catastrophic,” he concluded.
There is speculation that Emanuel, reportedly in the running to lead the Democratic National Committee, may run for president in 2028, Politico’s Playbook reported. Emanuel has not responded to the rumors.
