Walter Mondale (1928–2021) and the decline and fall of Democratic Party liberalism
Former vice president Walter Mondale, who died Monday night at the age of 93, is a political figure indelibly associated with the collapse of American liberalism and the turn by the Democratic Party decisively to the right.
As respectful obituaries in the corporate press noted, he was the last Democratic Party candidate for president to claim to be continuing the legacy of New Deal liberalism—although by 1984, when Mondale was routed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, this continuity was purely rhetorical.
It is a hallmark of Mondale’s political career that he was closely connected to three critical turning points in the rightward trajectory of the Democratic Party.
Mondale entered politics as an acolyte of Hubert Humphrey in 1948, when Humphrey was leading the purge of Communist Party supporters from the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, as the party was called in Minnesota. It was the embrace of Cold War anti-communism that put liberalism in unbreakable bondage to American imperialism and set its course firmly to the right.
Mondale reached the summit of American politics in 1976, as the running mate of Jimmy Carter on the victorious Democratic Party ticket that ousted Republican Gerald Ford. Carter and Mondale—with Mondale serving as an unusually influential vice president—established the first Democratic administration in a half-century that broke with New Deal liberalism.
In 1984, Mondale headed a presidential ticket that lost 49 out of 50 states to an ultra-right Republican, President Ronald Reagan, winning the fewest electoral votes of any Democratic candidate in history. All subsequent Democratic candidates have disavowed the label “liberal” and advocated openly right-wing, pro-business, pro-corporate economic and social policies.
Mondale was the son of an impoverished Lutheran minister and grew up in a series of small towns in southern Minnesota populated by the descendants of Scandinavian immigrants. He enrolled in Macalester College and later transferred to the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1951.
Before obtaining his degree in political science, however, he had already been schooled by a master of political skullduggery. In 1948, the 20-year-old Mondale was a congressional district campaign manager for the senatorial campaign of Hubert Humphrey, then the mayor of Minneapolis.
The New York Times obituary observes, “Mr. Mondale joined the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and became involved in its internal battle to oust Communists and their sympathizers. Mr. Humphrey, at the time the outspoken mayor of Minneapolis, led that fight. …”
Humphrey’s anti-communist purge marked the demise of two decades of efforts in Minnesota to build an independent political party based on the unions and organizations of small farmers.
The Farmer-Labor Party (FLP) had been established in the 1920s and became so successful that it reduced the Democratic Party to third-party status in the state. The FLP did not, however, represent a genuine break by the unions from the Democratic Party, as both parties continued to support the Roosevelt administration in national politics.
This was reinforced by the role of the Stalinists of the Communist Party USA, who had considerable influence within the FLP. The CP backed Roosevelt in the name of the wartime alliance with the USSR, and in 1944 helped engineer the merger of the FLP with the Democrats.
From a purely electoral standpoint, the Minnesota Democrats were the weaker party in the merger with the FLP. But the American ruling class was preparing its Cold War offensive against the Soviet Union, and the anti-communist purge was the domestic counterpart.
The first critical fight in Minnesota was the purging of the Trotskyists from the trade unions in Minneapolis–St. Paul, where they had enormous influence since leading the general strike movement in 1934 that brought tens of thousands of workers into the Teamsters union. This was carried out by Teamsters and American Federation of Labor (AFL) bureaucrats, backed by the Roosevelt administration, which prosecuted and jailed 18 leaders of the Socialist Workers Party, many of them from the Twin Cities.
The presence of socialists and communists within the merged Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party became the next testing ground for the methods that were ultimately given the name McCarthyism after its most repulsive advocate, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. But Democratic Party liberals played a more decisive role in the witch-hunt, and those from Minnesota, like Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy and Orville Freeman, took the lead.
Humphrey & Co. perfected the technique of combining liberal rhetoric in domestic policy and hard-line anti-communism in foreign policy, which became the mainstay of the Democratic Party. The predominance of Minnesota liberals in the Democratic Party over the next four decades is extraordinary. Politicians from this state, only 18th of the 50 states in population in 1950, falling to 21st today, were either on the Democratic Party national ticket or significant challengers for the presidential nomination in every election from 1960 to 1984.
Mondale was Humphrey’s protégé and ultimately his political heir. It is another hallmark of his career that his major steps up each rung of the political ladder were due to patronage, not to any particular popular appeal on his part.
In 1958, Mondale, two years out of law school, took a key position in the administration of Governor Freeman, and in 1960, Freeman named Mondale, only 32, to fill a vacancy as state attorney general. Similarly, when his former mentor Humphrey was elected vice president in 1964, a Democratic governor selected Mondale as his replacement. After eight years in the Senate, Mondale was tapped by Jimmy Carter as his running mate, to give the former governor of Georgia a connection to the liberal wing of the party.
Mondale accomplished this steady ascent without the slightest indication of independent thought, let alone dissenting opinion. In 1964, he served as head of the credentials committee at the Democratic National Convention, which, on orders from Lyndon Johnson and Humphrey, seated the segregationists from Mississippi and gave only token recognition to the delegation of Mississippi Freedom Democrats.
Mondale entered the Senate in time to vote for the Voting Rights Act and other liberal legislation associated with the “Great Society” policies of the Johnson–Humphrey administration, but did not initiate it. He did not support Eugene McCarthy, his fellow senator from Minnesota, when the latter broke with the Johnson administration over the Vietnam War and challenged Johnson for renomination. Mondale remained an adamant supporter of the war until 1969, when it had become “Nixon’s war” and most Democrats now claimed to be “antiwar.”
In 1976, Mondale fit easily with the shift to the right in the Democratic Party signaled by the victory of Carter in the presidential primaries. He agreed to become Carter’s emissary to the liberals because they were moving in the same direction. Fiscal responsibility, not meeting social needs, had become the watchword: retrenchment, not expansion, of the welfare state.
The Carter–Mondale administration came to shipwreck on twin disasters, one domestic and one foreign. Carter came into direct conflict with a powerful section of the industrial working class, the coal miners. When 111,000 miners struck the industry in 1977 and voted down a contract after more than two months on strike, Carter invoked the Taft-Hartley Law to force them back to work. The miners defied the order, and the administration could not enforce it.
Overseas, the authority of American imperialism was directly challenged by the Iranian Revolution, which overthrew the Shah of Iran, long the most powerful ally of the United States in the Middle East. A series of provocations culminated in the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran by militant students and the 444-day hostage crisis. The economic impact of the Iranian revolt was felt in rising oil prices and gasoline shortages in America.
Mondale was, according to his obituary notices, the first American vice president to serve as, in effect, a deputy president, with significant authority delegated to him and a major role in internal policy deliberations. There is no record of any significant disagreement between Mondale and Carter on major issues or policy actions. He was a right-wing politician in a right-wing administration, which marked a turning point, particularly in domestic policy, towards increasing confrontation with the working class.
Carter’s record was so right-wing that it provoked a challenge to his renomination in 1980 from Senator Edward Kennedy. Mondale firmly defended Carter, campaigned for him throughout the primary contests, and thus played a key role in Carter’s narrow primary victory.
It is noteworthy that the Carter–Mondale administration set in motion the preparations for breaking a strike by the air traffic controllers employed by the Federal Aviation Administration—intended, in part, to offset the humiliation inflicted by the coal miners. Carter had to cede that role to the next administration after Reagan won the 1980 election by a sizeable margin. But everything Reagan did to smash the PATCO strike in 1981 was based on plans already worked out under Carter and Mondale.
Mondale was the presumed frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984, and he easily defeated challenges from Senator Gary Hart, former campaign manager for George McGovern, who attacked him from the right, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who criticized him from the left. His campaign was thoroughly undermined, however, by the overall shift to the right in the Democratic Party.
The colorless Mondale, with a wooden grin and a stiff manner, seemed to personify the inability of the Democrats to make any genuine popular appeal to the working class. But it was the reactionary record of the Carter–Mondale administration that made that impossible. Although Reagan was widely hated, particularly for the devastation his policies had caused to industrial workers through factory closures and unionbusting, he won by a landslide, carrying every state but Minnesota.
The election of Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992 gave Mondale’s career in public life a final, significant chapter. Clinton named him US ambassador to Japan, where he represented the interests of American imperialism in the capital of its then-greatest economic rival, continuously pressuring the Japanese government to open its markets to American goods. In that period, Clinton pushed through NAFTA in large measure to consolidate a North American trade bloc against Japan—as opposed to the current US–Mexico–Canada deal, worked out by Donald Trump with Democratic support, which targets China more directly.
In 1998, the Clinton administration dispatched Mondale to Jakarta to read the riot act to the crumbling regime of Indonesian dictator Suharto. As the WSWS wrote at the time, “After a one-and-a-half hour meeting with Suharto, Mondale emerged to demand ‘full, demonstrable and vigorous implementation’ of the IMF plan to deregulate the Indonesian economy as the price for a $US38 billion financial bailout.”
The US concern was Suharto’s poor economic management in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, not his long and bloody record of crimes against the Indonesian people and suppression of all democratic rights.
A longtime US stooge, since he took power in a bloody 1965 CIA-backed military coup in which 1 million people were slaughtered, Suharto was clinging desperately to power. While US officials denied that Mondale had delivered a private message from Clinton that Suharto must step down, there were widespread reports that the administration had held closed-door meetings to discuss a “Manila scenario,” referring to the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1986.
Barely two months after the Mondale visit, with anti-government riots spreading throughout the country, Suharto took the advice of his imperialist overlords and announced his resignation. This was to be a controlled transition that would preserve Indonesian capitalism and the corrupt ruling elite, and protect American interests. In this, his final major political intervention, Mondale acted as always as a representative of American imperialism, demonstrating once again the role of Democratic Party liberalism.
Democrats to Americans: Screw you
A serious question: How is it that any Democrats ever get elected to national office? Cheating now leaps to mind, but, other than that? Their policies fly in the face of the beliefs and values of a distinct and measurable majority of Americans. But they don’t even care about the poll numbers.
- Most Americans are adamantly against defunding the police, African Americans included. Most Americans are against Democrat plans to pack the Supreme Court.
- Most Americans are against leaving their border(s) open and rewarding those who choose to come here illegally by giving them free goods and services.
- Most Americans are against the concept and practice of unlimited immigration.
- At least a slight majority of Americans realize that abolishing the oil, gas, and coal industries and enacting the Green New Deal will destroy their nation’s economy and dramatically worsen their lives-- and those of their descendants. And:
- Most Americans do not believe man-caused global warming/climate change is an existential threat to their country or the planet as a whole.
- The large majority of Americans are against late-term and “after-birth” abortions.
Etc., etc., etc.
And Democrats seemingly reply, “Frankly, Americans, we don’t give a damn!”
And they somehow end up in office, anyway.
Who should be “pushing back,” Maxine? Who should be taking to the streets in protest, Kamala?
Has Joe Biden Committed Impeachable Offenses?
At the end of President Trump's first term, congressional Democrats impeached and tried the president, and the one and only article of impeachment was for “incitement of insurrection.”
The focus of this charge was a statement made by the president telling the January 6th rally attendees that, "if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore”, the operative word there being “fight.” Of course, the assumption was the definition of the word fight can only include physical violence. The House managers must have never heard anyone say, “I’m going to fight this cancer with all my energy.” They certainly did not anticipate the president’s counsel playing video showing Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer and certain impeachment managers using the word “fight” and not being charged with anything. The implication was that the president encouraged and incited violence at the Capitol, one of the results of which was the murder of a Capitol police officer. This charge was specifically included in the article. We know now it was a lie and there was no evidence then to make such a charge.
The constitutional text covering impeachment requirements includes the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The generally accepted viewpoint is that this describes any serious abuse of power, including legal and illegal activities. Any civil officer can be impeached for misconduct, violation of oath of office, or serious incompetence.
Joe Biden, in the early days of his presidency, issued executive orders stopping the construction of the border wall and the Keystone pipeline. Regarding the pipeline, this order put Americans out of work with the justification being the claim by so-called environmentalists that pipelines cause irreparable harm to the landscape, the animal kingdom, and the climate. This argument was used decades ago regarding the Trans Alaska pipeline. One notable claim was that the West Arctic caribou herd would be endangered. The fact is that since the pipeline was completed, the herd is now four times larger. While this fact alone may say nothing about Joe Biden, it does tell us that his reason for killing American jobs is based on lies. I would say this qualifies as serious incompetence. We will call this Article 1.
It is clear to everyone that a completed border wall will go a long way toward the goal of stopping massive illegal entry into our country, a goal shared by all sovereign nations that understand the purpose of an established border. The prime responsibility of a president as head of the Executive branch is to enforce federal laws. Failure to do so violates the oath of office and is clearly an example of serious incompetence. Here we have Article 2.
Also, on day 1 of his presidency, Biden issued an executive order requiring everyone on federal lands or in federal buildings to wear a face mask. Daniel Horowitz explains that masks are designated as experimental medical devices. Vaccines and face masks have only been allowed for use by the FDA via the Emergency Use Authorization. The law covering these devices states, “Federal law governing the conditions of authorization of unapproved emergency medical products (21 U.S.C. §360bbb–3(e)(1)(A)(ii)(III)) requires the secretary of HHS to "ensure that individuals to whom the product is administered are informed," among other things, "...of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product." Stated simply, masks are experimental medical devices and as such their use cannot be required. I am fairly sure that violation of federal law qualifies as misconduct, violation of oath of office, and serious incompetence -- a trifecta and Article 3!
Most recently, the president announced his desire for a guilty verdict in the Chauvin trial saying, “I'm praying that verdict is the right verdict, which I think it's overwhelming, in my view. I wouldn't say that unless the jury was sequestered now." So, the head of the executive branch, whose job is to enforce the laws, (and to leave judging guilt or innocence to a different branch) has entered judicial branch territory by deeming the verdict he is dreaming about to be the correct one. This is misconduct at the very least, with oath of office violation and serious incompetence thrown in for good measure.
Using racist math, we’ve now have a total of four Articles of Impeachment. That is a pretty good start.
If we want to be thorough, we must consider Maxine Waters for impeachment as well. As noted earlier, President Trump was impeached for incitement of insurrection. Auntie Maxie went to Minneapolis to tell reporters and a crowd of protestors, if the former police officer isn't found guilty of murdering Floyd, "We've got to stay on the street and we've got to get more active, we've got to get more confrontational. We've got to make sure that they know that we mean business." Waters said she was "hopeful" Chauvin would be convicted of murder, but if he wasn’t, "we cannot go away." I think urging a mob to commit violence, masked as “being confrontational,” is greater evidence of incitement than Trump using the word “fight.” Congressional representatives are also subject to impeachment, so I offer Article 1 for the impeachment of Maxine Waters.
But now, as I snap back to reality, it is obvious to me and anyone who has inhabited the planet for more than two days that neither of these two will face impeachment, thanks to the current makeup of the House of Representatives. But until Joe Biden issues an executive order banning them, I can at least dream.
Image: Pix4Free.org
He added, “Our numbers are actually increasing. In the past 30 days alone, we’ve intercepted over 340 alien smuggling cases. … We’ve seen an increase in high-speed pursuits through our neighboring counties, through our local county here, Val Verde County. Those pursuits are up 117% so far this year. The number of sex offenders that we have arrested within these groups of individuals is up significantly, over 2,000%.”
Biden Trips on the Border
Column: The one issue where the White House plays defense
Matthew Continetti • April 23, 2021 5:00 amThe pickings are slim for Republicans in Joe Biden’s Washington. For the past few months, the president has maintained a job approval rating in the mid- to low-50s. He has a net positive rating in the double digits. He gets good marks for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, for his distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines, and for his (misguided) decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The American Rescue Plan is extremely popular, and the American Jobs Plan polls well. The rules of the House and budget reconciliation in the Senate mean that Republicans are powerless to stop major economic legislation from becoming law. Meanwhile, the conservative grassroots are more interested in election integrity and identity politics than in policy. GOP officials are frustrated. "It’s always harder to fight against a nice person because usually people will sort of give him the benefit of the doubt," Senator John Cornyn (R., Texas) told The Hill recently.
There’s one issue, however, where the public has doubts. It’s the border. The surge in illegal immigration throughout his first 100 days in office has left Biden vulnerable to Republican criticisms and worried about the political implications. The crisis has exposed as false the idea that this administration is staffed with an "A-Team" of "hyper-competent" technocrats able to manage anything that comes their way. Leaks to the news media reveal an administration playing an internal blame game. The typically unflappable Jen Psaki has been caught up in spats with the White House press corps. The upshot is that Biden’s missteps have given the GOP an opportunity to unite around border security and tight labor markets.
The public doesn’t like the results of Biden’s asylum policies. Just 24 percent of adults in a late March AP-NORC poll approved of Biden’s handling of the border surge. Last week’s Quinnipiac poll showed 29 percent approval. A Morning Consult survey conducted at the end of last month found that a majority of registered voters blamed Biden, not "seasonal migration," for the spike in illegal entries. Participants in the Engagious/Schlesinger swing-voter focus group doubted that Biden’s emphasis on diplomacy and humanitarian aid would reduce the pressure on the border. "Swing voter support for Biden’s border policies is like sand falling through an hourglass," Engagious president Rich Thau said to Axios.
And Biden’s response isn’t helping. He put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of efforts to solve the problem, but Harris recognized the political peril involved and quickly made it clear that she would be engaged in diplomacy rather than emergency response. Harris will meet virtually with the president of Guatemala on April 26, two days after her in-person visit to New Hampshire. The southern border has yet to appear on her schedule.
With Harris burnishing her foreign policy credentials, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra has been left to coordinate the administration’s efforts. One reason Republicans unanimously opposed Becerra’s confirmation was that he’s a lawmaker and activist in a job best suited for bureaucrats and wonks. They had a point. The press routinely depicts Biden as unhappy with Becerra and "frustrated" at his inability to house, care for, and resettle unaccompanied minors safely and swiftly. What did Biden expect? The moment demands a figure with the logistical brilliance of Dwight Eisenhower and the moral core of Albert Schweitzer. That description doesn’t exactly fit Becerra, who is best known for suing nuns.
Nor is the anti-Becerra leak campaign the only piece of evidence that the White House fears an immigration backlash. Last week, in the space of several hours, Biden flip-flopped on refugee admissions. First came the announcement that, contrary to his campaign pledge, Biden would not raise the cap on refugees. Democrats and progressives slammed the move as inhumane and illiberal. Then the White House, always keeping an eye on its left flank, said it would increase the number of refugees after all. Press secretary Jen Psaki blamed the confusion on "messaging." She was right—the White House had two different messages in one afternoon. A week later Psaki was still trying to explain the discrepancy.
It turns out that Biden didn’t want to draw further attention to immigration by admitting more refugees during the border crisis. His political instincts may have been sound—but he wasn’t willing to test those instincts against criticism from his own side. The White House can’t even admit that what’s happening on the border is a crisis. When Biden told reporters, "The problem was that the refugee part was working on the crisis that ended up on the border with young people, and we couldn’t do two things at once," Psaki and other administration officials said he was referring to the "crisis" in Central America that is supposedly forcing migrants to seek a better future in the United States. Please.
Biden spoke the truth: There is a crisis on the border. What he can’t accept, however, is that his policies are responsible for it—and are making his political difficulties worse. And so he’s handed Republicans a powerful issue in an otherwise bleak environment. Now they have to use it.
Biden rings another dinner triangle for illegals to surge on in
In the midst of a border crisis he claims isn't happening, Joe Biden has a peculiar means of stopping it:
By inviting more of them in.
According to Breitbart News:
President Joe Biden’s administration may provide immigration rights and citizenship to many foreign “climate migrants” who claim they are being displaced by climate change, the Associated Press (AP) reported this week.
Which doesn't exactly make sense. If the entire Earth is frying up hot from global warming, why would changing the latitude and longitude of a particular group of foreign nationals make any difference to them, or, for that matter, help the Earth to 'heal,' as the lefties like to put it? Isn't the prospect of bringing foreign nationals to hurricane and wildfire zones afflicting the states as a supposed result of global warming, taking them from the frying pan to the fire? Some refugee logic going on there, but that's far from the worst of it.
The climate-change canard is specifically mentioned in lefty literature as the reason why Central American peasants are leaving their subsistence farms and claiming asylum in the United States.
Never mind that urbanization of this kind has happened all over Latin America, and for many, many years. Climate had nothing to do with it. Poverty did. Where did the favelas of Rio de Janeiro come from? Tell us about the shantytowns of Caracas. For uneducated subsistence farmers, it often makes more sense to leave a hand-to-mouth existence in the zero-infrastructure countryside where the government does nothing, than to try one's luck on the outskirts of the region's miserable oversized cities and live on garbage scraps and Chiclet sales. In places such as Bogota, Medellin, and Lima, the countryside refugees flowing into the cities are actual war refugees, escaping communist guerrilla brutality. I've been to those places -- and I asked.
Joe didn't include them in his invitation, of course, he just rang the triangle for "climate" refugees. If someone mismanages their land, or wants better salary or a country with rule of law, well then, blame the climate, and come on in.
What's obnoxious about this is that pretty much anyone in El Salvador, Honduras, or Guatemala can claim that. Climate change doesn't come for just conuco farms, though, by its own logic it's supposedly all over. So anyone who lives in those places now, country or city, hard-hit farm, or shantydown, has a right to asylum, on climate grounds, since we're the bad guys, you see, and we owe it. Quick, get over here, the time is now, get in before Joe changes his addled mind, so the invitation reads.
Let's also talk about those conuco farms -- farms which subsist by burning brush and forest -- which is why Brazil and Bolivia had a air pollution crisis a couple years ago. These farms exist all over Latin America. What Joe's doing is offering asylum in the states to the very people who are contributing to the polluting by burning all the brush. Those carbon emissions from those subsistence farms, blameworthy or not, add a lot of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Joe's not rewarding greenies with green cards in this current dinner triangle for climate refugees, he's offering it to the biggest polluters.
And the nonsense about climate refugees itself is nonsense, too. Land mismanagement, a failure of government to issue title-deed to peasants for their property rights, all make the land vulnerable to mismanagement, overuse, and burning. It's the tragedy of the commons, as the matter is known. Fix that, and you get American-style greenery and bona fide ownership management.
Breitbart noted that Joe didn't see fit to invite any of the presidents of these Central American countries where the migrants are surging in to the states to his low-viewer conference, you'd think their input might be valuable.
Most hideous of all is that Joe is issuing this climate refugee invitation right in the middle of a border surge.
His previous invitation was to unaccompanied minors, but it's apparently not been enough. That blunder led to many Latin American presidents condemning his idiocy, as tens of thousands surge over and find themselves in overcrowded government detention facilities, filling not just those but stadiums, convention centers and military bases all around the U.S.
Biden's denied that he's the one responsible, but the double-digit surges in numbers, as well as the news stories of toddlers dumped over the border wall and left alone, killed in high speed car crashes, or abandoned in the desert by smugglers tell another story. Or, you could ask those migrants in Biden t-shirts why they're coming, they'd point to Biden, too.
There was an incentive offered to do things this way instead of use the legal channel, and now Joe's encouraging more of it, inviting pretty much all of Central America and anyone else from any country to claim a chimerical climate refugee status.
The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that Joe Biden really doesn't care that there's a border surge and actually wants a bigger one. He's likely to get his wish with this one, with a bigger surge about to begin.
Image: Screen shot from video from Sky News Australia, via YouTube, citing thescoop.us and @crazyraiderrad (IG)
Woke Companies and Individuals Donate Millions to Joe Biden’s Inaugural Committee
Dozens of woke corporations and wealthy individuals donated millions of dollars to President Joe Biden’s Inaugural Committee, totaling a sum of $61 million.
Inaugural committees, unlike congressional and presidential campaigns, are free to accept corporate donations, providing an unusual occasion to give candidates huge money.
“The list included companies with major business before the federal government — on everything from taxes to regulations — such as Uber, Lockheed Martin, Comcast, AT&T, Bank of America, Pfizer, and Qualcomm, all of which gave the maximum $1 million,” Politico reported.
It’s worth noting Biden did not take any money from fossil fuel companies, foreign agents, or lobbyists.
As compared to former Presidents Trump and Obama’s hauls, Biden’s diverged. Trump out raised Biden by $46 million in 2017, while Biden over-performed Obama’s second term committee by $18 million. Obama did bring in nearly $53 million with his first committee in 2007.
According to Tuesday’s FEC report, the filings indicate three tranches of donations to Biden: One million cap, $100,000 plus, and notable individuals.
One Million Bracket:
- Uber
- Lockheed Martin
- Comcast
- AT&T
- Bank of America
- Pfizer
- Qualcomm
- International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers labor union
- Sherwood Foundation (Susie Buffett)
- Levantine Entertainment LLC
- Masimo Corporation
At Least $100,000 Bracket:
- Amazon
- United Airlines
- Ford
- Doordash
- Airbnb
- Charter Communications
- Anheuser-Busch
- Walmart
- Verizon
- Yelp
- Anthem
- Microsoft
- PepsiCo
- Holland & Knight
- Dow Chemical
- General Motors
- FedEx
- Amgen
- Quicken Loans
- National Football League
- United Association
- United Food
- Commercial Workers International Union
- American Federation of Teachers
Notable Individuals Bracket:
- Brad Smith, Microsoft
- David Zapolsky, Amazon
- Ken Griffin, hedge fund billionaire and Republican megadonor
- Constance Williams, former Pennsylvania state senator
- Jean-Pierre Conte, private equity executive
- John Foley, Peloton
- Haim Saban and Donald Sussman, Democrat megadonors
- Chris Sacca and Crystal Sacca, venture capitalists
- Bill and Melinda Gates
- Bill Austin, hearing aid billionaire
- Laurene Powell Jobs, billionaire heiress
- Arthur Blank, Home Depot
- Amy Goldman Fowler, billionaire heiress
- Jonathan Gray, The Blackstone Group
- John and Ann Doerr, venture capitalists
- Chris Larsen, angel investor
- Thomas Tull, entrepreneur and film producer
- Neil Bluhm, real estate
- James Chambers, billionaire heir
- Penny Pritzker, businesswoman
- Lukas Walton, billionaire heir
- Hamilton “Tony” James, The Blackstone Group
- Reid Hoffman, internet entrepreneur
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