Glenn Greenwald: Leaders get rich at the expense of everyone else
Substack journalist discusses former President Obama fundraising for 'shrine' to himself on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight'
Former President Barack Obama is asking for donations to build his presidential library while planning a massive birthday soiree at his Martha’s Vineyard estate.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald weighed in Wednesday on "Tucker Carlson Tonight," arguing that the former president aims to get rich at everyone else’s expense.
"It is the ethos of neoliberalism," he said. "Leaders get rich at the expense of everybody else."
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According to Greenwald, presidential libraries as a concept did not exist for the150 years since U.S. presidents are expected to be respected simply as civil servants.
"You don’t need like a shrine to your existence," Greenwald said.
This was until Franklin Roosevelt led the country through momentous historical events like the Great Depression and WWII where those documents were kept in his library. But now Obama’s library is just pushing the envelope, Greenwald explained, with its grandiose architecture, four different buildings, and a 235-foot museum tower in his honor.
Greenwald revealed that the former president has also removed the library from the record-keeping system, normally administered by the National Archives, which puts the library's papers in possession of Obama himself instead of the public.
"So to keep control of it he’s raising money from people in the middle of a pandemic in a joblessness and eviction crisis right as he was planning a multi-million-dollar birthday party bash at his $12 million estate which is his second weekend home in Martha’s Vineyard," he said.
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Those in the ruling class have been reluctant to be "flamboyant" about abusing their power and flashing their money to maintain societal stability, Greenwald said, yet Obama’s life-long aid Valerie Jarrett has the audacity to publicly solicit for the construction of his "shrine."
"How long is the population going to tolerate that?" he asked.
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