Mike Pence and Bernie Sanders can hardly be considered political friends.
In the aftermath of two major bank collapses, however, the former vice president of the conservative party and the democratic socialist senator are strikingly similar tones. Pence, a Republican, said, “We live in a world where the government props up, backs up, and bails out politically favored corporations.” Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, stated, “We cannot go down the path of socialism for the wealthy and rugged individualism for everyone else.”
This mood parallels the populism that has permeated both political parties for the past fifteen years, when weak banking institutions last prompted widespread economic worry. The 2008 financial crisis unleashed a political realignment that rejected perceived elites and established leaders, frequently with unforeseen consequences for both Democrats and Republicans.
“There is growing unhappiness with corporate greed, which is less about left vs right than top versus bottom,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, the first national organization to support Elizabeth Warren’s populist-infused 2020 presidential candidacy.
In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the Republican Party was taken over by the tea party movement, which advocated for a smaller government and spending restrictions. Donald Trump ultimately rose to prominence at the cost of more seasoned leaders such as Jeb Bush, John Boehner, and Paul Ryan.
Occupy Wall Street protestors brought attention to the Democratic Party’s longtime links to big industry and went on to inspire Bernie Sanders’ vigorous challenge against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Warren ascended from bankruptcy specialist at Harvard University to national political figure who helped establish the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. This was such a focal point of her presidential campaign that fans occasionally yelled “CFPB” at her rallies.
In the meanwhile, a new generation of younger members allied with democratic socialists, such as New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, joined Congress, frequently unseating long-serving incumbents.
Members of both party are responding to a base of people who are distrustful of institutions and disinterested in the political niceties that previously dominated Washington.
President Joseph Biden attempted to negotiate these pressures on Monday at the White House by maintaining that taxpayers will not be responsible for any help to failing banks.
“This is a crucial point: No public losses will be incurred,” stressed Biden, whose early days as vice president under Barack Obama were preoccupied with the financial crisis response.
The contemporary disorder differs from that time period. In contrast to the 2008 financial crisis, which relied on deteriorating mortgages owned by several banks, this week’s problems appear to be limited to institutions that were unprepared for increasing interest rates.
Yet despite the fact that several of Wall Street’s most notable corporations, including Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns, failed in 2008, there is presently little anxiety about the strength of “too big to fail” firms. This is due to the fact that reforms enacted in the wake of the crisis increased the monitoring of such institutions, subjecting them to more regulation, stricter capital requirements, and periodical stress tests to determine their ability to withstand unanticipated shocks.
Only weeks before the election, some of the most dramatic events of the 2008 crisis occurred, including a rare White House meeting between then-President George W. Bush, Democratic contender Barack Obama, and Republican nominee John McCain. This time, the presidential campaign is in its infancy when the instability manifests itself.
Yet, those vying for the White House in 2024 are reviving some now-familiar populist ideas.
Biden’s statement that taxpayers would not ultimately be accountable for the government’s reaction to bank collapses was deemed “disingenuous” by Pence, who has yet to formally announce a presidential candidacy.
Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador for Donald Trump who launched her candidacy for president last month, was more direct: “The age of big government and corporate bailouts must stop.”
Trump, who is launching his third presidential campaign, has resorted to inciting fear by forecasting another 1930s-style slump, as he did during the 2008 financial crisis.
“We will see a Great Depression that is far more severe and widespread than that of 1929.” “On his social media site, he wrote. “As evidence, banks are already beginning to fail!”
Trump told reporters on Tuesday that “rollback was a wonderful thing” in response to Warren’s and other prominent Democrats’ claims that decreased banking rules enacted after the 2008 financial crisis helped avert present issues.
“Otherwise, you’d have a lot more banks in problems right now if they weren’t being suffocated by regulation,” Trump remarked, adding that interest rates were too high.
Ahead of a highly anticipated presidential candidacy, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has pushed the populist leaning of the Republican Party into so-called culture battles over race and gender. Without providing proof, he asserted that diversity, equality, and inclusion criteria prevented the bankrupt Silicon Valley Bank from focusing on its main objective.
Green stated that, similar to how Elizabeth Warren rode fury over the 2008 financial crisis to national political prominence, Donald Trump has a plan of outflanking other Republicans and neutralizing Joe Biden on economic populist themes, as he did with Hillary Clinton.
If authorities can rapidly manage the present banking turmoil, the longer-term political repercussions may be minimal. Yet populist politics will persist, particularly when Congress must decide later this year whether to raise the debt ceiling, a once-routine ritual that now threatens to turn into a showdown if Republicans refuse to increase the nation’s borrowing ability. Failing to comply would result in a possibly catastrophic default.
James Henry, a global justice fellow at Yale University and managing director at the information technology consulting firm Sag Harbor Group, attributed Silicon Valley Bank’s failure to decades of lax regulations and a “tiny elite” of venture capitalists and bankers with ties to both parties’ top leaders.
Yet Henry also stated that the Biden administration had little option but to intervene because to the possibility for bigger financial dangers to spread throughout the technology industry, making it impossible to evaluate the failure’s ideological repercussions.
“There are no libertarians in the current economic crisis.” “Henry stated. “Both sides are attempting to be rescued.”
