When President Obama and his team of geniuses came to Washington, they promised hope and change. They were devoted liberals, determined to stamp out the influence of corporations and "special interests," and tireless advocates for working Americans. That was then.
BuzzFeed reports that a number of former top Obama advisers have sold out, cashed in, and are now getting paid large sums of money to wipe the organized labor movement off the face of the earth:
On Tuesday, Obama’s former top White House adviser and 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe signed on with Uber, the company known for its slick app and on-demand cars — and efforts to break taxi-union holds on urban transportation.
Plouffe joins former top Obama campaign and White House communications strategist Robert Gibbs, Obama’s national press secretary for the 2012 campaign Ben LaBolt, who are using their talents in a campaign against the power of teacher’s unions, and 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina, who went to London to work for the reelection of England’s Conservative Party government, which is campaigning on a platform that includes new rules English labor says would make it "close to impossible" to go on strike.
"The key staff from Obama for America are translating their political success into personal economic success," Larry Cohen, president of the Communication Workers of America, told BuzzFeed. "If anything this points to the need for the rest of us to build a movement that gets big money out of politics so the change we voted for in 2008 can become real."
Gibbs and Labolt have caught fire from teacher’s unions after teaming up with former CNN host Campbell Brown, who is leading a series of lawsuits seeking roll back teacher tenure protections. Meanwhile, former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina has taken his talents global in an effort to establish a political consulting empire. Part of that effort includes advising the Tories in Great Britain in their campaign to make it harder for unions to go on strike.
To be fair to these voracious greedmongers, they are simply following the example of the presumptive leader of the Democratic Party in 2016, Hillary Clinton, who has spent the last several years raking in millions giving speeches to Wall Street executives while ignoring the struggles of hardworking Americans. This is what democracy looks like.