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\u201cDavid Plouffe's advice for 2020,\u201d Axios shared in 2019. \u201cJames Carville: 'Stupid wokeness' is a national problem for Democrats,\u201d CNN reported in 2021. \u201cRobert Gibbs, former White House Press Secretary under President Obama, discusses the debt ceiling deal and the latest job numbers,\u201d MSNBC announced in 2023.

On a regular basis, news media clue us into the latest prescriptions from so-called Democratic strategists: people who\u2019ve served as advisers, cabinet members, or other high-ranking positions within Democratic presidential administrations, who\u2019ve also gone on to make millions from corporate consultancy and PR. Whether Larry Summers, David Plouffe, or some other cable-news fixture, these figures are consistently trotted out to give a quasi-liberal, professional face to plain old pro-war, anti-Left austerity politics.

It\u2019s an obvious conflict of interest. If a presidential alum joins the board or C-suite of Uber or McDonald\u2019s, for example, they shouldn\u2019t be given the authority to weigh in on regulations or labor policy, especially on media platforms that claim to be somewhat left-leaning. If they work for a military contractor-funded \u201cStrategic consultant\u201d firm or, as is sometimes the case, directly for a weapons maker, they shouldn\u2019t be offering talking head opinions on issues of war.

But, within US media and politics, there\u2019s a bipartisan, Gentlemen's Agreement not to acknowledge this, let alone condemn it. There\u2019s a taboo against noting this widespread revolving door politics between the private sector, Gulf dictatorships, black box corporate consultancy firms and high institutions of government.

Instead, it\u2019s simply accepted that every White House, State Department or Senate job is an audition for a cushy board membership at Amazon, McDonalds, Raytheon, or a shady \u201cconsultancy\u201d firm.

On today\u2019s episode, we\u2019ll discuss the blurring of lines between Democratic and Republican politics and corporate PR, examining the revolving door between high status government jobs and the consultancy blob, as well as how cable and print news outlets give PR flacks a platform through which to treat horrible policies as just another product to sell.

Our guest is the Revolving Door Project's Jeff Hauser, founder and Executive Director of the Revolving Door Project.