Most of Joe Biden’s early nominees for his incoming administration have signaled that rather than cater to the left of the Democratic Party, he will reinstate a return to neoliberal normalcy. For better, that means bringing in agents who still adhere to financial realism and at least a nominal loyalty to Israel. For worse, that means the dregs of the swampiest possible personnel to employ them.
One such career partisan is Neera Tanden, the president-elect’s reported choice to serve as the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Tanden, currently the president of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, exemplifies the less savory aspect of what has been considered “normal” for the swamp, not just because she was a Clinton loyalist who is bouncing from presidential administration to presidential administration with little real-world experience outside of law school, but also because of what she, as all swamp monsters do, got away with.
The #MeToo moment was nice while it lasted, but Tanden’s resilience in elite liberal circles — in this case, literally the White House — just goes to show that our supposedly adjusted standards of how we treat sexual misconduct allegations will still be bent for our ruling class.
In 2018, BuzzFeed published a bombshell investigation into the Center for American Progress’s failure to properly address sexual harassment under Tanden’s tenure and, worse, its perceived retaliation against an alleged victim. Two days later, Tanden engaged in what most consider the ultimate act of retaliation: She outed the identity of the accuser to the entire company in an all-hands meeting.
“Neera lost the organization today,” a CAP source told BuzzFeed. “There was so much angst in that room. She outed the victim, and the subtext of every question was a lack of confidence in her leadership and ability to create trust within the organization.”
After years of fulminating about sexual misconduct allegations levied against President Trump, Tanden’s failure to abide by the most basic tenets of fairness to sexual misconduct accusers constitutes the most rank hypocrisy. As a moral matter, it’s both a failure of leadership and feminism. But as a purely pragmatic one, it demonstrates the sort of horrific judgment that invites not just leaks but also lawsuits. In any sane world, Tanden’s job at CAP would have been in question at best, and the thought of a presidential appointment rendered unthinkable.
But Biden has demanded we return to normal, and that means letting the swamp monsters, no matter how many #MeToo violations or lobbyist ties, return with it.
