An Ominous Mismatch

Watchdog ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 27-39
Author(s):  
Richard Cordray
Keyword(s):  
Tea Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Financial Protection ◽  
Political Contributions ◽  
Financial Industry ◽  
Financial Problems ◽  
President Obama ◽  
Tea Party Movement

Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, sparking a bitter partisan battle. The bureau’s mission—to help individual consumers cope with their financial problems and to ward off future crises like the 2008 financial collapse—posed a direct challenge to the financial industry. As the industry has grown, it has also greatly expanded its power in Washington through extensive political contributions and lobbying efforts. Its support for the Tea Party movement shifted the political balance in the 2010 elections. Using its political might, the industry opposed the bureau and then sought to block confirmation of anyone as its director, hoping to hobble efforts to operationalize it. On Elizabeth Warren’s recommendation, President Obama nominated Richard Cordray to be the first director, starting a fight over his confirmation that would last two years.

The Making of a Watchdog

Watchdog ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 40-54
Author(s):  
Richard Cordray
Keyword(s):  
Credit Card ◽  
Student Loans ◽  
Majority Vote ◽  
The Political ◽  
Financial Protection ◽  
Simple Majority ◽  
Financial Industry ◽  
Political Opposition ◽  
President Obama ◽  
Simple Majority Vote

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s strategy was to push through the political opposition by acting aggressively for consumers. Early on, the bureau worked to make the terms of financial products more understandable for consumers, creating streamlined forms for mortgages, student loans, and credit cards. It took major enforcement actions against credit card companies for deceptive marketing, returning billions of dollars to consumers. As Cordray’s nomination languished in the Senate, President Obama made an extraordinary recess appointment to install him on a temporary basis. The financial industry immediately challenged the appointment in court, and Republicans pushed back hard in tough oversight hearings. In July 2013, the Democratic Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, moved to invoke the “nuclear option” to approve nominations by a simple majority vote. The Republicans yielded, and Cordray was confirmed in a bipartisan vote of sixty-six to thirty-four. In a tough two-year battle, the bureau prevailed over the strenuous opposition.

The Mainstreaming of Racism in American Politics

Hard White ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard C. Fording ◽  
Sanford F. Schram
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
White House ◽  
Tea Party Movement ◽  
Political Narratives ◽  
Key Terms

This chapter frames the book’s analysis and provides an overview of the subsequent chapters. It explains how racism today is manifested most significantly in white “outgroup hostility” toward Latinos and Muslims as well as African Americans. It highlights the importance of race-baiting elites in exploiting a transformed media landscape to stoke white outgroup hostility and thereby mainstream racism in American politics today. The chapter introduces and defines a number of key terms, including “racialized political narratives” that operate to racialize selected groups of people to be constructed as threatening “outgroups” in opposition to whites as the “ingroup.” It emphasizes that the “political opportunity structure” for white racial extremists became more open, especially with the rise of the Tea Party movement, leading to their increased participation in conventional politics. The chapter argues that these factors had already converged prior to 2016 for Donald Trump to exploit in winning the presidency, thereby accelerating the mainstreaming of racism in American politics by putting it at the center of public policymaking in the White House.

The Mainstreaming of the White Nationalist Movement

Hard White ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 72-96
Author(s):  
Richard C. Fording ◽  
Sanford F. Schram
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Presidential Candidate ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
White Supremacist ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
Tea Party Movement ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
National Leader

Chapter 4 documents the rise of the Tea Party movement (TPM) and how it evolved into an attractive vehicle for the expression of outgroup hostility and the pursuit of racist policy priorities. We show that the TPM not only mobilized a significant number of previously inactive white racial conservatives but also co-opted a significant portion of the white nationalist movement, especially the traditional white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. In many ways the TPM set the stage for Trump by bringing more white racists and racial conservatives into electoral politics. Yet this newly energized constituency lacked a national leader. Trump’s emergence as a presidential candidate thus represents the second critical change in the political opportunity structure. With Trump, white racial extremists and racial conservatives now had a national leader who spoke directly to their outgroup hostility and their anger.

Capital and Opposition in Africa: Coalition Building in Multiethnic Societies

2013 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo R. Arriola
Keyword(s):  
Commercial Banks ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Political Contributions ◽  
Financial Reforms ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
Financial Autonomy ◽  
Electoral Coalitions ◽  
Multiethnic Societies

Under what conditions can opposition politicians with ethnic constituencies form electoral coalitions? In Africa's patronage-based political systems, incumbents form coalitions by using state resources to secure the endorsement of politicians from other ethnic groups. Opposition politicians, however, must rely on private resources to do the same. This article presents a political economy theory to explain how the relative autonomy of business from state-controlled capital influences the formation of multiethnic opposition coalitions. It shows that the opposition is unlikely to coalesce across ethnic cleavages where incumbents use their influence over banking and credit to command the political allegiance of business—the largest potential funder of opposition in poor countries. Liberalizing financial reforms, in freeing business to diversify political contributions without fear of reprisal, enable opposition politicians to access the resources needed to mimic the incumbent's pecuniary coalition-building strategy. A binomial logistic regression analysis of executive elections held across Africa between 1990 and 2005 corroborates the theoretical claim: greater financial autonomy for business—as proxied by the number of commercial banks and the provision of credit to the private sector—significantly increases the likelihood of multiethnic opposition coalitions being formed.

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