Time to Sister Souljah a Fat-Ass White Billionaire

Here’s why we have to overturn Citizens United & end Big Money in politics:

Billionaire Reid Hoffman donated $7 million to the Harris campaign.

Now, he wants her, as president, to fire an outstanding members of the Biden Administration, FTC Chair Lina Khan. Not acceptable.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 25, 2024

Bernie wants a word

OK, I am making a culture reference that is 32 f%$#ing years  old, so for any reader(s) who are too young to remember, I am referring to a, "Sister Souljah moment," which was Bill Clinton attacked  at a speech that he delivered at a Rainbow Coalition which attacked her when she made some rather inflammatory comments in the context of the Rodney King riots.

This was a conscious decision by the Bill Clinton campaign, which had decided to pick a fight with some (ANY!) African American figure in an appeal to centrists.  (Actually an appeal to racists)

Sister Souljah is an African American rapper, Author, activist, producer and poet.

So, on to the fat-ass white billionaire, Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, who has donated $10 million to the Harris campaign and then demanded that Lina Khan be fired.

So, what can be done about this nakedly corrupt self-absorbed mother f%$#er beyond calling him a self-absorbed mother f%$#er?

Well, I'm kind of a glass half full guy on this, and I would say that were Harris and surrogates to condemn him by name, this would be a good thing.

If they were to do so, they would be signaling to their base that they are not beholden to the Silly Con Valley tech bros, whose reputation has lost much of its luster lately. 

One of the concerns about Harris is that she is too deferential to the Tech Bros, and going after one of them by name would both good policy and good politics for Harris.

By way context, Reid Hoffman, while arguably the least awful human being in the PayPal Mafia, (Low f%$#ing bar) is a contemptible human being.

Among other things he has extolled monopoly power, he calls it, "Dominance," because once they have crushed all the competition by hook and crook, they can do good things.

Here's a clue for everyone, if a company breaks the law and discriminates as a start up, they will do so as a unicorn, and as a monopoly.  Evil gets baked in, and the formation of a monopoly or an oligopoly demands evil people with contempt for the law.

Matt Stoller has his number.  (At link above)

As I’ve written, for the last few weeks, there has been a campaign among big business advocates to eliminate the new trade, antitrust, and labor policies put in place over the last five years or so. When Kamala Harris took over the Democratic nomination from Joe Biden, that campaign ramped up.

A few days ago, billionaire LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman gave $10 million to the Kamala Harris effort, and promised a lot more. Hoffman is a Silicon Valley titan, part of the “PayPal mafia” that includes Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, though Hoffman sits on the Democratic side of the aisle. This morning, Hoffman went on CNN and issued demands. Harris must end Biden’s tariff and antitrust regimes, he said, and fire Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan.………

The FTC is investigating Microsoft.  Hoffman is a member of Microsoft's board of directors.

Hmmm.

………

🚨BREAKING: Microsoft's billionaire Dem donor @ReidHoffman is pressing @KamalaHarris to fire FTC chair @LinaKhan - as Microsoft faces FTC scrutiny.

Hoffman is on Microsoft's board. The FTC is probing Microsoft's merger with Hoffman's other company. https://t.co/5iq74qKLnV

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) July 25, 2024

………

Very few people in official Washington have even noticed, beyond the usual suspects of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren:

………

So far, Hoffman’s demand has been met with disinterest from the political press and a muted response from labor and progressive groups, who have mostly endorsed Harris and are enthusiastically celebrating her candidacy. There are a few exceptions. Senator Bernie Sanders chimed in angrily about Hoffman’s demand, and Senator Elizabeth Warren offered an endorsement of Khan. A pharmacist group also weighed in, and there will likely be more statements as the news filters through a very confused media environment, as Khan has a lot of fans (including in tech, she’s speaking at YCombinator today to a packed room).

Also, Hoffman has written about the juxtaposition of business and politics, where he shows himself to be the glioblastoma of the body politic:

………

Hoffman laid out his political philosophy in 2018 in what seems like a business book, one titled Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies. In it, Hoffman analyzed the rise of companies like Uber, Google, Microsoft, AirBNB, Amazon, Apple, and so forth, argued that monopolization through cheap capital and lawbreaking is socially beneficial, and that such firms should be admired for their mergers and acquisitions strategies and network effects that thwart rivals. When looking at which firms to laud, Hoffman knew to avoid using the term ‘monopoly,’ substituting the word ‘dominant,’ which he puts in his book 29 times as a positive affirmation.

Hoffman might seem to be simply expounding about commerce, but in fact he is oriented around politics. Hoffman believes the goal of any entrepreneur is to ignore everything except growing so quickly that a business elevates itself to sovereign levels of global power. He even uses the terms “Nation” and “City” to describe such a corporation. Once there, they must become good corporate citizens. “If you previously ignored issues such as diversity, legal compliance, or social justice,” he writes, “you need to understand that all eyes are now on you, and you'll be expected to behave as a responsible citizen and role model.”

Such a statement is a rebuke of some basic elements of our social order. After all, what does it mean to ignore issues such as “legal compliance” until you’ve built dominant market power? Well, that’s as close as you can get to saying that breaking the law to form a dominant corporation is virtuous. There’s an expression that behind every great fortune is a crime and Hoffman is basically saying that yes, that’s true, except such crimes are good if they are paired with diversity mandates, statements about social justice, and legal compliance regimes.

………

The only upside here is that Hoffman is being very public, aggressive, and explicit about his demands. And he’s going to corner Harris until she kisses the ring, or refuses to do so. From his perspective, he’s not donating $10 million, he’s making a purchase. Or so he thinks. Now it’s up to Harris to make the choice. Does she have Silicon Valley donors, or Silicon Valley owners?

Seriously, going after Hoffman is a no lose proposition, so do it.