Gross writes: "In the past few weeks, it's been hard not to notice a new species: Maleus Americanus Crustius."
Jack Welch, former chairman of General Electric, speaking at the Boston University School of Management in 2009. (photo: Michael Springer/Bloomberg)
The Old, Wealthy White Men Who Hate Obama
11 October 12
Jack Welch, who accused Obama of manipulating the jobs report, is just one of the wealthy white dudes, mostly in their late 60s and 70s, who�ve been stalking the airwaves, print, and social media, attacking the president. Daniel Gross offers a guide to the aging moguls who loathe Obama.
hey're everywhere! In the past few weeks, it's been hard not to notice a new species: Maleus Americanus Crustius. Sure, they've always been with us. But these days, the alpha-male specimens, white dudes mostly in their late 60s and 70s, have been stalking the airwaves, print, and social media. They're full of rage and fury about politics, tax policy, and the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They share certain characteristics: north-south migration patterns, brittle egos, receding hairlines, and long records in business. While they respond well to obsequiousness and stroking, they exhibit a tendency to snarl when put on the defensive. And they don't need medication to get blood moving to their extremities. The mere mention of President Obama does the trick.
Our Field Guide to Angry Old Obama-Hating Rich Men.
Name: Jack Welch
Age: 76
Pedigree: Titan of industry, 20-year CEO of General Electric, turned speaker, management guru and columnist with wife Suzy. Active on Twitter.
Natural Habitat: Boston, Nantucket, Palm Beach.
Recent Noteworthy Activities: Starting with a series of tweets last Thursday, Welch has been all over the media-on CNBC, on MSNBC, on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page-accusing the White House and the Obama campaign of manipulating the September jobs report. He's also generally been running down the conduct of the U.S. economy under the Obama administration. Reacted to harsh pushback from reality-based community by comparing U.S. to Soviet-style authoritarian regime in which any and all dissenting views are crushed.
Ostensible Reason For Anti-Obama Rage: Is convinced the Obama administration is cooking the books on labor market, and is anti-business.
Real reasons for generalized anger: Legacy as a highly praised CEO who raised revenues from $26 billion in 1980 to nearly $130 billion in 2000 but has been attacked recently as just the wins of a bull market economy. Meanwhile, his hand-picked successor, Jeff Immelt, who accepted an Obama appointment to a jobs council, has racked up much less impressive record-but is much better-liked.
Name: Leon Cooperman
Age: 69
Pedigree: Founder and CEO of Omega Advisors, wildly successful hedge fund
Natural Habitat: Lower Manhattan
Recent Noteworthy Activities: Cooperman featured prominently in Chrystia Freeland's recent article in The New Yorker about angry rich guys. He distributed a letter to colleagues complaining about Obama's divisive rhetoric and class warfare, and obliquely compared Obama's political rise to that of Hitler.
Ostensible Reason For Anti-Obama Rage: Obama occasionally refers to the wealthy as fat cats, says people who fly in private jets should pay higher taxes, blames banker and Wall Street for woes of economy.
Real Reason For Generalized Anger: Neither Obama-nor his kids-sent Cooperman a thank-you note after he presented the president with a volume of self-published poems written by Cooperman's teenaged granddaughter.
Name: Sam Zell
Age: 71
Pedigree: Legendary real estate investor, known for jumping into distressed situations. Ill-fated, highly leveraged acquisition of Tribune Company wound up in bankruptcy.
Natural Habitat: Chicago, distressed-investing conferences.
Recent Noteworthy Activities: In an appearance on CNBC on October 2, Zell tore into Obama, suggesting that it didn't make sense for people like him to invest at a time when business is under attack.
Ostensible Reason For Anti-Obama Rage: Obama wages class warfare by arguing that those with higher incomes should pay higher taxes than they pay now.
Real Reason For Generalized Anger: Even after a successful career as contrarian investor, Zell is mostly known to the public for his disastrous, money-losing purchase of the Tribune Company in 2007.
Name: David Siegel
Age: 78
Pedigree: Founder of Westgate, a large time-share business. Builder of 90,000-square-foot home in Florida, featured in documentary, The Queen of Versailles.
Natural Habitat: Orlando
Recent Noteworthy Activities: Recently circulated an email to employees in which he said he would fire employees if President Obama were to be reelected.
Ostensible Reason For Anti-Obama Rage: Obama's plans to raise taxes on rich and health care costs will make it impossible for businessmen like him to make money. Also, president has apparently failed to stimulate sufficient demand for the low-end vacation time shares he sells.
Real Reason For Generalized Anger: He came off badly in documentary about his unfinished 90,000-square-foot house.
Name: Steve Wynn
Age: 70
Pedigree: Charismatic founder of Wynn Resorts, helped reinvent Las Vegas.
Natural Habitat: Las Vegas, Macau
Recent Sightings: In an interview with journalist Jon Ralston earlier this week, Wynn raged about the president's practice of class warfare. "I can't stand the idea of being demagogued, that is put down by a president who has never created any jobs and who doesn't even understand how the economy works."
Ostensible Reason For Anti-Obama Rage: Obama has called for higher taxes on the wealthy, and has made off-handed comments that are harmful to casinos' effort to pry dollars from consumers. For example, he warned companies that accepted bailout funds: "You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime." He also told Americans: "You don't blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you're trying to save for college."
Real Reason For Generalized Anger: Enraged that Andy Garcia got to play the role of the casino owner in the Ocean's 11 franchise.
Name: Rupert Murdoch
Age: 81
Pedigree: Founder of Fox News, owner of Wall Street Journal, media mogul
Natural Habitat: London, Australia, Manhattan
Recent Activities: Took to Twitter to suggest every American go see 2016: Obama's America, Dinesh D'Souza's absurd anti-Obama documentary.
Ostensible Reason For Anti-Obama Rage: Hates liberals, lives to crush them, draws life-sustaining energy from the tears of progressives around the world.
Real Reason For Generalized Anger: Hates liberals, lives to crush them, draws life-sustaining energy from the tears of progressives around the world.
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It isn't so much that Trump may or may not be guilty of anything, as much as it is a concerted effort by the Dems and their allies to distract attention from their own criminality. By stridently pointig to the possibility of Trump misdeeds, they only solidify the disbelief in those of us who remember their own - which they take no responsibility for.
The Republicans have certainly sown the seeds of their own destruction, but the Democratic party is following them rapidly down the drain withh the same-old, same-old tactics of shifting blame onto anyone that will serve the purpose of distraction. That's not bad, though. It's always useful to know the enemies of Democracy for who they are.
You bring him up even when it makes no sense, and you always do so with a sneer. The problem is, even as you insult him, he is STILL the ONLY politician publicly calling for single payer health care, jobs, opioid treatment centers, etc. He's the one working his heart out to win back Obama-to-Trump flippers. He's the one talking to Independents and advocating for the 99%.
Your inappropriate and obsessive taunts for a good man, maybe one of the last good pols in DC, is very weird and a bit worrisome; instead of convincing anyone to distrust him, it only makes you look irrational, petty and unhinged.
Yes, it is a tad Utopian, but if criminals high and low were actually held accountable, taxpayer money would go where it is intended to go, so we could start to achieve real social progress.
An impossible goal, unless there would be an amnesty period, say 3 or 4 years, for both rich and poor pirates to clean up their/our acts via legal or gently nefarious means. Perhaps extend it a bit for the Pentagon and its missing 2.3 trillion dollars so we don't have a military junta...
why don't you stop excusing what the DNC did and demand accountability. there's no way this country will recover until the corruption is exposed and dealt with.
No clue as to his responsibilitie s, either.
1. We suspend Trump's activities as President - no policies, executive orders or any other significant activities on behalf of the U.S. - he's a liar and cannot be trusted - trust is basic to any president
2. With Mike Pence in the picture now, same for him - suspend him
3. We set up the apparatus to do either of the following:
- declare Hillary Clinton the winner of the Nov 8th election - fair and square
- hold an "election do-over"
We must show the world - and ourselves especially, that we are smart and strong enough to deal with any crisis that comes our way.
Not only did Hillary win the popular vote by 3 million voter, but you'd have to be deaf dumb and blind to not believe that Russia, plus Comey's bogus announcement 10 days prior to the elections, did not sway the incredibly few people in the 3 states that gave the electoral college to Trump - Wisconsin, Penn., Michigan.
Our democracy is at stake and these unprecedented activities by Trump and his cabal call for unprecedented action - the courage to do what is right-throw these bums out, bring in Hillary or do the election over again, giving the Repugs 30 days to choose their candidate and then another 30 days for both to campaign - period.
I don't think we will make it to 2018 with peace in our land. There are just too many guns in the hands of our citizens and our armed forces. Perhaps, the people we have killed since Vietnam and Cambodia to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen and Libya will come back to haunt us. What a fate, self destruction. I think we have a chance for peace but the door is closing fast. Leave it to the Republicans and we are doomed for sure. With the Democrats, even Hillary, we have a chance.
Fortunately, she is Green and also progressive and so she could not have been a dupe by Putin.
But as we can see from Le Pen - that is how it starts...
From Putin's point of view, she was a useful idiot. She helped progressives to think that both major parties are equally corrupt and so it doesn't matter who wins.
Nader caused Bush and his stupid wars and now Stein has helped cause the current mess. Progressives need to understand the actual function of elections. If you vote for a third party it means that you really don't care who wins.