What would our society look like without billionaires?
We’re excited to introduce you to our conversation with this week’s guest, the brilliant Peter S. Goodman, but first we’re sitting down for a drink with Jen Psaki.
The Biden admin’s time in office, clocking in at a full year as of yesterday, has been marked by failed initiatives and the dashed hopes of those who welcomed Biden as a potential champion for a progressive agenda. We saw this in the rise and fall of the budget bill, with the lapsing of the desperately needed child tax credits, with every time the president refused to bring Sinema and Manchin in line but proudly distanced himself from Bernie Sanders. (As we’ve seen on Krystal Kyle & Friends and beyond, nobody has fought harder for the most bold, necessary ideas from this presidency than Bernie Sanders, and certainly not Biden himself.)
So it’s disquieting that, after a year of lofty promises and near-zero delivery, the best pep talk the Biden admin can give to galvanize the country is to hit the punching bags or pour ourselves a drink. Political campaigns like Sanders’s rallied legions of volunteers to raise cross-country support for his agenda. But as Biden allows the right wing of the Democratic Party to run the show and asks the rest of the country to sit back and watch, it’s no wonder that Americans are increasingly discontented with the failure of each passing bill. The voting rights initiative falling flat shouldn’t come as a surprise, and it won’t be the last failure of its kind, either, if the Biden admin keeps the same playbook.
On to this week’s guest. We’re joined by Peter Goodman, who’s written superbly for the New York Times about the cult of heroism our culture has constructed around billionaires. He’s a master at exposing the lies used to build up this myth — how these high-flying capitalists depend on pilfering from their workers and getting easy breaks from the U.S. government. (You can read one of his articles here.)