Matt Taibbi

Matt Taibbi
Matthew C. "Matt" Taibbiis an American author and journalist. Taibbi has reported on politics, media, finance, and sports, and has authored several books, including The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking Americaand The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth2 March 1970
CountryUnited States of America
In America, it takes about two weeks in the limelight for the whole country to think you've been around for years.
In other countries they have histories with revolutions and class movements. In America, people don't like to think of themselves like being in a lower class. They all like to think of themselves as potential millionaires.
For a country founded on the idea that rights are inalienable and inherent from birth, we’ve developed a high tolerance for conditional rights and conditional citizenship.
We paid for this instead of a generation of health insurance, or an alternative energy grid, or a brand-new system of roads and highways. With the $13-plus trillion we are estimated to ultimately spend on the bailouts, we could not only have bought and paid off every single sub-prime mortgage in the country (that would only have cost $1.4 trillion), we could have paid off every remaining mortgage of any kind in this country - and still have had enough money left over to buy a new house for every American who does not already have one.
In the Tea Party narrative, victory at the polls means a new American revolution, one that will take our country back from everyone they disapprove of. But what they dont realize is, theres a catch: This is America, and we have an entrenched oligarchical system in place that insulates us all from any meaningful political change.
America is a country that has been skating for ages on its unparalleled ability to look marvelous on the outside.
One loves one's country the way one loves a family member. And sometimes that family member does really embarrassing, shitty things. But you still love them.
We love wealth, and we hate poor people. I know people who work in TV news who have actually been told to do stand-ups rather than put interviews with poor people on the air. We physically don't want to look at them.
When push comes to shove, we all should know most Americans want the same things, but just disagree on how to get there, which is why it should be okay to not panic if the other party wins.
It's increasingly clear that governments, major corporations, banks, universities and other such bodies view the defense of their secrets as a desperate matter of institutional survival, so much so that the state has gone to extraordinary lengths to punish and/or threaten to punish anyone who so much as tiptoes across the informational line.
It obviously matters who gets to be president. And it's perfectly valid for us media types to advocate for the candidate we think is more qualified, based on our reporting. But the hype has gotten so out of control, it's become bigger than the presidency itself.
You might think otherwise, but it doesn't naturally follow that because a law has been passed by Congress and signed by the president, said law actually has to be implemented.
We may be many things, we Americans, but we always get the job done.
In reality, everybody in Congress is a stand-in for some kind of lobbyist. In many cases it's difficult to tell whether it's the companies that are lobbying the legislators or whether it's the other way around.