As a liberal, I have had countless conversations where I try to talk about how to fix an inept Congress, only to have someone bring up former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) stock-trading activity.
It is natural to get defensive and try to discount those attacks as whataboutism. But when you attack the Republicans as oligarch-friendly, you become a bit of a hypocrite when you ignore that the Democrats are just as much fat cats as anyone else. The Republicans may be Garfield, but the Democrats are Heathcliff.
Democrats might be looking at poll numbers now and gleefully entertaining fantasies of the upcoming midterm elections. But they also should look at their own numbers and realize that President Trump’s terrible numbers don’t alleviate the fact that they aren’t liked either. One of those reasons is that Democrats haven’t really walked the walk when it comes to running an incorruptible government. One of their biggest faults is stock trading.
Stock-trading by members of Congress should be illegal, or at least done through a blind trust. Over 80 percent of Americans feel this way. In these divided times, that is an astounding display of unity, and for good reason.
Americans believe that senators and members of Congress are passing laws and enacting policies that will affect their stock portfolios instead of protecting the welfare of Americans. Going back to Pelosi, I had a friend confidently tell me years ago that Pelosi’s stock portfolio had outperformed Warren Buffet's. I laughed in his face, because it sounded completely preposterous. But guess what? It's true. Not only did her portfolio (managed by her husband) have a rate of return more than twice that of the “Oracle of Omaha,” it also outperformed most Wall Street hedge funds.
You can even follow her buying and selling history and try to help your own retirement fund. But it is a problem that Democrats increasingly like to put their head in the sand in. When they wonder why disaffected voters still turn to a populist like Trump, they must look in the mirror at some point.
When Luigi Mangioni was arrested for killing the CEO of United Healthcare, many of our politicians showed just how out-of-touch they were when it came to private insurance companies. But is one of the reasons that many of our politicians owned United Healthcare stock? Politicians from Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) made money off United Healthcare. I am sure both have constituents who have suffered from continued problems that private health care has brought on Americans. Should we have to wonder whether they are slow to change things because it helps them get rich?
United Healthcare also spends millions in lobbying and donates to political campaigns to protect the profits it makes from citizens. I can also tell you that in a utopian world, members of Congress should also stop taking lobbyist money and corporate donations but we can cross that bridge later. For now, Democrats can do something that would endear them to the public while also putting Republicans in a pretty horrible position.
Members of Congress will not realistically stop trading stocks — even though they should. But a good way for Democrats to build back public trust as they take on the Republicans in the midterms and in 2028 would be to take the moral high ground. All members of the Democratic caucus should voluntarily put their investments into blind trusts.
In 2012, during the Republican primary to challenge Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich attacked former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for investing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while Americans lost their homes during the housing crisis. Romney responded, saying that his investments were in a blind trust and not under his control, while also calling out Gingrich for also having the same investments. It was a great debate moment, but more importantly, it showed that a rich man like Romney could be trusted to run the government without enriching himself.
This should be obvious but the Democrats, who should be leading the way, are doing everything to not lead. President Biden waited until December 2024, after Trump won, to support a ban on stock trading. I mean, what was the point of that?
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has a chance to lead on this. He hasn’t made a stock trade since 2021, and he can be the one to get every Democrat to put their portfolios in the hand of a trustee or to divest. Doing so can and will ensure that the Democrats have a moral high ground when they go after Trump from now until November 2026.
As a Marine veteran, I can’t help but think of the words of the two-time Medal of Honor recipient, Smedley Butler. In 1935, Butler wrote “I spent 33 years in active military service… as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.” As an Iraq War veteran, I can’t help but think the same thing. The Republican defense budget proposal is now $1 trillion. Who in Congress owns the military contractors who will benefit most?
If the Democrats truly care about earning back the public’s trust, a good first step is to differentiate themselves from Trump and the Republicans and either stop trading in stocks or put their investments into blind trusts. Their political future depends on it.
Jos Joseph is a master’s candidate at the Harvard Extension School at Harvard University. He is a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and lives in Anaheim, Calif.
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