On August 11, Joe Biden and the presidential motorcade entered a private gated community in Park City, Utah. Park City is the nation’s second wealthiest metropolitan area and Joe Biden was there to get a piece of that money. According to 2News, “the ‘Biden Victory Fund’ would accept up to $929,600 from one person alone, and about half that from a PAC.”
At the same time as Joe Biden was telling stories about his friendship with Mitt Romney, Jake Garn, and Orrin Hatch to his wealthy donors, the town of Lahaina, Hawaii was burning to the ground in a blaze which began on Tuesday, August 8. The official death toll (August 13) stands at 93, but with thousands still to be accounted for that number is likely to rise significantly. The direct cause of the deadliest wildfire in recent history is unknown but it is certain that climate change played a role in the unusually dry conditions on Maui.
Rather than doing his job and declaring a climate emergency, Joe Biden went to Utah to gather money from the very people who are driving climate change. The wealthiest one percent account for one quarter of total carbon emissions since 1990. In order to attend the Park City fundraiser, tickets “started at $3,300 and ran up to $100,000 to be a ‘host.’” Meanwhile, according to a Federal survey 37% of the US in 2022 did not have the money to cover a $400 expense. It is no wonder that Joe Biden’s grassroots donations are down and he has to go back to the tried and true method of begging for billionaire dollars.
The fundraiser was held at the house of former U.S. Ambassador Mark D. Gilbert who had a successful career as an investment banker with Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers. As of 2012, Mark had raised $3,362,278 for President Obama’s campaigns. In 2013, he was rewarded for his loyalty with the ambassadorship to New Zealand and Samoa even though he had no real qualifications for this position.
“The best way to make sure that they’re able to live in places like this, and … the wealthy to do very well, is if the middle class does well and the poor have a way up,” Biden said to his backers, after telling them that he’s “never been a big fan of trickle-down economics,” to laughs. - Salt Lake City Tribune
According to Scott Howell, who attended the event, “Biden said he’s had several congressional Republicans tell him they agree with some of his actions, but they can’t publicly say so because it will lead to them being challenged and defeated in primary elections.” This is not surprising at all considering that under Biden more than 4 million people have lost their Medicaid benefits and nearly 30 million lost food stamp benefits. These are policies that Biden’s donors and Republicans can certainly approve of! Biden continues to wage war on the poor and oppressed as student loan interest will resume on September 1 and repayments on October 1. These policies won’t impact the attendees of his fundraiser who can afford to throw their cash away at events like this.
Lahaina is now seeing the impact of Biden’s class war. With a lack of governmental response, the Washington Post reported that Native Hawaiians were left on their own:
“There’s no government agency helping us — this is it,” said Jareth Lumlung, a Native Hawaiian who helped arrange the de facto donation hub. “This is our home, our community.”
NBC News reported that the government was actually preventing aid from reaching Lahaina:
Local residents say that government agencies have blocked roads leading to the Lahaina, preventing aid and donations from getting to the devastated area.
Cassidy and Alexa Kailieha, from Oahu, told NBC News they have family in Lahaina who lost everything and don't have access to food.
“They’re just standing there blocking the road, they haven’t passed out one simple water bottle, a plate of lunch, nothing,” Alexa said tearfully about local agencies in Lahaina. “They’re just standing there and letting our families starve and not letting us help them."
In an interview with the Weather Channel on Wednesday, August 9, the day after the fires on Maui began and the day before his big fundraiser, Biden responded to a question about declaring a climate emergency saying, “Practically speaking, yes.” This was a lie, as in reality there has been no declaration of a climate emergency. A climate emergency declaration would allow him to:
Ban crude oil exports
Halt oil and gas drilling on federal land
Halt US invesment in fossil fuel projects abroad
And many other things that he has no desire to do. While touting himself as a climate president, Biden has in fact approved oil and gas drilling permits on public land at a pace faster than even Trump.
At the COP26 summit in Glasgow, Biden called climate change “an existential threat to human existence” and pledged to cut U.S. emissions by up to 51% over the next nine years. Days later the administration offered 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas leasing, and it has since expanded oil and gas leasing onshore. - Center for Biological Diversity
The simple truth of the matter is that Biden is more interested in pleasing his billionaire donors than in taking real action for the working class. The people of Lahaina just some of the unfortunate recipients of his actions. He has not changed - his entire career he has been ready to prostitute himself to the big guys for the money. This fundraiser in Park City was just the latest example of that. The people of Lahaina and the working class of the world will continue to suffer as long as the interests of capital are placed before those of the people.
Thank you. Excellent column. Biden and his Democrat ilk are actually more dangerous than the Republicans because they cloak what they are actually doing with nice words and sweet nothing promises. Their base, anyway, is afraid to hold them to their promises or to doing the right thing because then they assume they'd get the supposedly even worse Republicans. Basically, as long as we have this enforced two-party-only political system, we're fucked.
I was in the first 19 year old cohort that participated in a presidential election in 1972. Unlike the majority of my peers I voted for George McGovern. Little did I realize at the time my missing the opportunity to support the most leftist president of my life, Richard M Nixon. Let that sink in ... Nixon, Nixon who if he could run today would be far to the left of Strom Thurmond's buddy, Joe Biden.
Nixon's administration created the EPA and enacted the Clean Water Act. Can you imagine Biden doing anything as substantive in another term much less in the conclusion the current one?