Twitter users slammed the elitist head of a Google-, Meta- and Microsoft-funded think tank calling domestic manufacturing a “fetish” for white men “with low education.”
Journalists and commentators from across the political spectrum on Twitter, from CNN to National Review and other outlets, united in slapping down Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) President Adam Posen for absurd remarks he made about “white males” in the business world during an Oct. 6 event hosted by the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.
“The fetish for manufacturing is part of a general fetish for keeping white males of low education outside the cities in the powerful positions they’re in in the U.S.,” Posen said. Immediately before Posen made insinuations about millions of white men living in rural areas, he asked for forgiveness, “I’m sure I’m going to piss off the left and right, so I apologize.” [Emphasis added].
Posen must’ve known that what he was going to say was callous. But he said it anyway.
Google and Facebook’s parent company Meta each gave the think tank between $100,000-$249,999 in 2021, according to PIIE’s funding report. The same report shows that Microsoft Corporation also gave between $25,000 to $49,999 to the think tank.
PIIE describes itself as a “nonpartisan research organization” on its website, but the organization’s president seems to have donated exclusively to one side of the aisle.
Twitter users expressed outrage over Posen’s comments. American Economic Liberties Project Research Director Matthew Stoller exposed Posen’s disparaging remarks in a viral twitter thread with over 4,700 likes as of publication time. “I can't think of a better recipe for inducing racial tension than having D.C. elites financed by Wall Street pushing offshoring and then saying that anyone who opposes having their community and livelihood destroyed is racist,” Stoller wrote.
It seems that Stoller’s Twitter post was a trickle in a flood of apparent anger against Posen’s disparaging remarks on working-class “white men.”
Even CNN economic analyst Rana Foroohar shot down Posen’s comments: “It's stunning how out of touch most economists are with how business actually works. Or in this case, geopolitics. If you are a country today with no ability to make crucial goods or access them from allied nations, God help you.”
It's stunning how out of touch most economists are with how business actually works. Or in this case, geopolitics. If you are a country today with no ability to make crucial goods or access them from allied nations, God help you.
— Rana Foroohar (@RanaForoohar) October 6, 2022
Newsweek Deputy Editor Batya Ungar-Sargon ripped Posen’s comments as a symbol of wokeness. “Wokeness in a nutshell: We destroyed your communities and your ability to feed your kids with dignity for an economy that made us the smarty pants rich. Behold, we are virtuous and you are a bigot.”
Wokeness in a nutshell: We destroyed your communities and your ability to feed your kids with dignity for an economy that made us the smarty pants rich. Behold, we are virtuous and you are a bigot. https://t.co/nrXNigaUR6
— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) October 7, 2022
Rolling Stone contributing editor and journalist Matt Taibbi questioned Posen for arguing that working “white males” benefited from “powerful positions” in society.
“Okey, then. ‘Powerful’ positions?” Taibbi asked in a tweet.
Okey then. “Powerful” positions? https://t.co/31KUnhe3uW
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) October 6, 2022
National Review senior writer Michael Dougherty compared Posen’s elitist background in the intellectual world with hard labor. “I’ve actually worked in an industrial setting,” Dougherty tweeted. “I’d be curious to hear Posen describe the nature of the ‘privilege’ involved. I can tell him, it was a far more racially diverse workplace than any of the so-called knowledge work I’ve seen.”
I’ve actually worked in an industrial setting. I’d be curious to hear Posen describe the nature of the “privilege” involved.
— Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) October 7, 2022
I can tell him, it was a far more racially diverse workplace than any of the so-called knowledge work I’ve seen. https://t.co/nDJ4vb5n9h
Conservatives are under attack. Contact ABC News at (818) 460-7477, CBS News at (212) 975-3247 and NBC News at (212) 664-6192 and demand they report on Posen’s insulting, elitist descriptions of poor “white males” living in the rural U.S.
