There’s No Room in Joe Biden’s Cabinet for Problematic White Men
Appointing Rahm Emanuel compromises any claims of racial justice the president-elect might make
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
In spite of what you might have heard, Joe Biden was never going to fill his administration with a bunch of “left wing radicals.”
Yet, when he chose Neera Tanden — the current president of the think tank Center for American Progress — to lead the federal Office of Management and Budget, former White House chief of staff (and OMB chief) Mick Mulvaney had something to say about it. “To put someone like Neera Tanden in that office could be sending a strong message that this administration’s going to go hardcore left,” Mulvaney told Fox News.
While it’s an inane and ultimately meaningless turn of phrase, I assume when Mulvaney invoked “hardcore left,” he meant folks with progressive politics. But progressives’ actual reaction to Tanden’s nomination is, uh, mixed. Tanden can count on the support of Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman Barbara Lee for her nomination, but those aligned with Bernie Sanders’ former campaigns are far less enthused. Regardless of how anyone feels about Tanden’s…
