Michelle Obama will personally cut a bloody swath of murder through pundits and politicians if anyone suggests sending her back to the White House again, even as a VP. And Barack’s probably going to help her.
Well, this kind of surprised me. (You can sort on the “Trump Score” column.)
(ETA: I think it is regularly updated with the latest votes.)
Not that common sense is any close to being this guy’s strong suit than it is to being Trump’s.
Obama’s people are going to be the pool from which Biden chooses his people. He basically ran on this as a platform, besides which it is always easier to work with people you’ve worked with before. Summers is a terrible choice for any number of reasons, but I don’t think there’s much we can do about that. He is an experienced administrator. And I’m pretty sure he is not an admirer of Ayn Rand.
No reason to complain, take what we’re handed then? I ask more from those I vote for. (I also complained about Obama picking Biden.)
He basically ran on this as a platform
He doesn’t get my vote for what he ran on. He gets it for being last man standing.
You’ll do as you’re told and like it, peon!
Anything less is unforgivable disunity.
I think the fundamental disconnect here is that, being competent at implementing a policy is not, in itself, a qualification, except for people who support that policy.
There are some fields, like ones based on actual sciences, where competence in the field and administration alone goes a long way towards making someone suitable for a position like this, but the technocratic habit of applying that kind of assumption to something as inescapably ideological as economics is implicitly ascribing the same kind of objectivity to it, which I disagree with.
The Obama stimulus program went quite a long way to ameliorating the effects of the financial mess Bush left behind. Summers was a part of that. There were aspects of it one can criticize, but that’s true for pretty much any policy that is crafted and implemented in a political environment, but criticism of particulars should be accompanied with credit for success.
Biden is going to try as much as possible to recapitulate the Obama years. We all had lots of problems with many things that Obama did, nonetheless it was the least worst administration in decades.
Summers is an arrogant, sexist prick who suffers from Dunning-Kruger, thinks CEOs shit caviar, and leaves a slight ethical smell on everything he touches. Nevertheless he has enough experience with crafting policy and making things functional that he will be useful in trying to repair the mess that Trump is leaving behind. If I am trying to repair a dam that is collapsing, I prefer the person standing next to me to know how to mix and apply concrete, even if I don’t like his designs, to the guy who can design magnificent dams but has never held a shovel.
I am certain we will have issues with whatever Biden does there, and whoever he picks to help him, but that would have been true for any of the candidates, and it will still be a huge improvement over the status quo.
I get it, same old story really. Biden is going to shovel a lot of shit into our mouths, but at least the toxicity won’t be as high as that of the Trump shit we’ve been eating for four years now.
I’d say that Summers is the foremost academic face of Dem establishment neoliberal-lite economic policy, except for the fact that he ain’t so lite on the unsustainable neoliberal globalism. All it takes is a review of his Wikipedia entry to see that his performance during the 2007-08 crisis is just one example of how he’s been only slightly better than the GOP’s swivel-eyed “free”-market zealots from Mercatus and the like (he’s also one of American academia’s foremost arseholes and a handsy sexist creep, but that’s almost beside the point).
All of which is to say, I’m totally unsurprised he’s Biden’s pick. And you’ll accept him and like it, too, Dem voters. It’s not like there are experienced alternatives like Stiglitz and Krugman and Reich out there to help.
In “water is wet” news
Isn’t he also the shithead who said women aren’t as prominent in scientific fields because they’re just not as smart as men? (Maybe not, I sometimes get these entitled, unqualified, yet supremely confident assholes mixed up with each other.)
That’s what he implied, although he masked it in the idea of inherent “ability”. You’ll also be shocked to hear he’s an outspoken opponent of “political correctness”. Won’t it be great to have this guy as Biden’s first choice for economic advisor?
Don’t forget to add “cis-het white-presentinting male”. Dickheads like this infest academia, leveraging their privilege and their gaslighting skills until they can get tenure and really enjoy an asymetric power balance (albeit a petty one in most cases) without being called on it like they can be in the outside world. Summers is different only in that he’s been allowed to extend his reach beyond departmental politics to national and international politics.
