A reputation that was never that great.
Neera Tanden has been accused of Hatch Act violations while working at the White House. This embarrassment is not unexpected sadly.
Government Executive – Senior White House official violated the Hatch Act, OSC says A filing with the Merit Systems Protection Board alleges that Biden’s domestic policy advisor shared fundraising messages for Democratic political candidates on social media. November 7, 2024 SEAN MICHAEL NEWHOUSE The Office of Special Counsel in a complaint filed on Wednesday alleged that senior White House official Neera Tanden used social media to help raise money for political candidates, which would be a straightforward violation of the Hatch Act.
Democracy Now – Neera Tanden Named White House Staff Secretary Despite Progressives’ Protests – Oct 25, 2021 Neera Tanden has been appointed as White House staff secretary, where she will oversee which documents make it to President Biden’s desk. Tanden was forced to withdraw her nomination to head the Office of Management and Budget in March over lack of congressional support after coming under fire from both the right and progressives.
I mostly associate Neera Tanden with Center for American Progress and for years, starting about a decade ago, of watching various disability justice advocates and disabled journalists seeming to get co-opted by CAP and orgs like it, though it is the biggest in the disability space, and it seemed like all the big names at least interacted with CAP, even if they didn’t work there.
People who would then water down their support for progressive values and embrace crap centrist or even rather conservative policy positions. Some would even take to scolding lefties on social media. And it was incredibly hard to criticize back, because of course these are disabled people, and critics would quickly find themselves under a DARVO attack being told that disabled people would otherwise live in poverty and they need jobs, or other types of woke-washing cover for the big money sloshing around to co-opt disability justice issues. Of course most of those disabled people involved in these upsets, who get plum positions in the non-profit industrial complex, are not usually people in poverty their whole life – they’re people who are definitely disabled, but maybe come from money, or at least enough means in some cases to get fancy degrees at ivy league universities. But because of the intense amount of vitriol which would ensue, likely with botnets and troll farms supporting it, even a progressive working class disabled person living on SSI and Medicaid would get driven off twitter for criticizing the centrist position of some ivy league disabled influencer with 100k followers, and told they were privileged and ableist and then further demoralized with shockingly nasty harassment. Most onlookers learned quickly not to poke that beehive, and stay silent. And many ordinary disabled people hoping for those plum jobs, even though it was not likely to happen, would of course fall in line. On the other side of it, I saw just random progressives and leftists who became so disgusted and disillusioned by the entire scene that they were easily recruited into also dubious circles of people in the online left. The entire information space became so toxic, and people became entrenched over sometimes even petty debacles over extremely niche issues.
Current Affairs – Why Is The Center For American Progress Betraying The Left? As the left tries to fight against inequality and exploitation, the main “progressive” think tank joins forces with right-wing free market capitalists… Nathan J. Robinson filed 13 December 2018 “CAP has strong ties with both Obama and the Clintons—it was founded by close Clinton confidante John Podesta and its president, Neera Tanden, previously worked for both Bill and Hillary Clinton. The New Republic has described it as “stuffed to the gills with staffers who have either worked in previous Democratic administrations or will go on to work in future ones.” The phrase “progressive” is often associated with the left wing of the Democratic Party, by contrast with its “moderate” wing, and progressives are typically skeptical of corporate influence in politics. The Center for American Progress, however, is cozy with some of America’s largest and most controversial companies. Though it is quick to emphasize that corporate donations constitute only a small part of its funding, in 2013 alone CAP received support from Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Coca-Cola, Citigroup, the American Beverage Association, Comcast, BlueCross BlueShield, weapons manufacturer Northrop Grumman, and Walmart. The government of the United Arab Emirates (which regularly carries out forced disappearances and torture) has given over $500,000. Investigative journalist Ken Silverstein, in an important 2013 investigation of CAP’s funding, was told by multiple former staffers that when CAP was seeking support from Saudis it muted its criticism of the Saudi kingdom. (CAP continues to conceal the identities of many of its largest donors.) CAP president Neera Tanden has described herself as “a loyal soldier” for Hillary Clinton and despite heading a “nonpartisan” think tank, worked behind the scenes during the 2016 primary to try to erode Bernie Sanders’ support. Leaked internal emails reveal Tanden’s own political instincts to depart from what is typically considered “progressive.” She advised the Clinton campaign against a $15 minimum wage…”
I will add what AOC said about organizing on November 6, 2024: “there’s a history in this country of powerful people bankrolling disruptors in people’s movements.” It’s not a maybe, it’s historically documented, and documented in the contemporary. It’s quite obvious there have been numerous narrative warfare divisive blowups that have served to pit disability justice voices against climate activists and labor. It’s hard not to suspect disruption, sabotage, and bad actors.
And there’s obviously plenty of industry tycoon and billionaire money sloshing around for these purposes, especially in the world of The Internet of Fakes.
Or maybe it’s all just a big coincidence, right?