Tag: Jamie Dimon

We have the opportunity for a realignment. We don’t have a party to do it. Yet.

One of the interesting things about the great realignment elections—1860, 1932, 1980—is that the presidents who win them (Lincoln, FDR, Reagan) never run simply against the losing candidate. Nor do they run simply against the party of that candidate. They run against a decades-long regime, which is never simply a party or political regime, but always, also, a social regime. Lincoln ran against the slaveocracy, who had nested in the Democratic Party. FDR ran against the economic royalists, who had found their protectors and agents in the Republican Party. Reagan ran against a complex of “special interests” (civil rights organizations, unions, feminist groups, poverty programs) that had captured the Democratic Party. In repudiating Carter, Hoover, Breckinridge/Douglas—and the Democrats of 1980, […]

Reactionary Minds

The Masters of the Universe don’t take kindly to the accusations of Occupy Wall Street, and they’re fighting back. Here are some verbatim quotes from the transcripts of their own defense, which toggles between a haughty contempt for the lower orders and a genuine, self-pitying sense of persecution.  Gee, if only someone would write a book explaining this… “Who gives a crap about some imbecile? Are you kidding me?” Bernard Marcus, co-founder, Home Depot “Acting like everyone who’s been successful is bad and because you’re rich you’re bad, I don’t understand it.” Jamie Dimon, CEO, JP Morgan Chase “Instead of an attack on the 1 percent, let’s call it an attack on the very productive.” John A. Allison IV, BB&T […]