There’s a Looming Eviction Apocalypse as Corporate Media Anoints Joe Biden as the New FDR

Reporting around the country the last six years, it never ceases to amaze me the gross disconnect between the bobblehead dolls masquerading as journalists on corporate cable news stations and actual living, breathing working people and the most vulnerable among us.

The most jarring case was when I’d turn on the TV at night to watch CNN and MSNBC covering Trump’s latest buffoonish tweets after spending the whole day at Standing Rock witnessing Native Americans on the receiving end of rubber bullets, tear gas, and worse for the crime of singing and banging on drums in protest of a dangerous pipeline going through their reservation and water.

Of course, the disconnect is intentional in order to distract the masses and maintain the status quo. And it remains in place now as the plutocrat-funded media ignores a potential COVID-induced eviction apocalypse just weeks away.

The CDC’s eviction moratorium ends on June 30th with crickets from the corporate media, President Biden, and the Democratic Party politicians in complete control of Washington. According to CNBC, more than 11 million Americans are behind on their rent and face a swift kick in the ass out the door with their families and belongings. In New York City, where the pandemic first overtook in early 2020, there have been 40,000 eviction proceedings initiated since March 2020 with the majority being in the impoverished Bronx neighborhoods, according to the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development. Unsurprisingly, the highest eviction cases have struck black and Latino communities.

And as one Twitter user pointed out, there are already tenants being forced out of their homes despite the moratorium, pointing to motels in Illinois being filled up.


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Of course, even during a deadly pandemic, there was never even a discussion in the United Corporations of America about canceling rent for tenants who lost their jobs or had their hours drastically cut back due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Being that we print money for war, subsidies for special interests, and a litany of other wasteful and morally bankrupt things, it was completely within the realm of possibility for then-President Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi to reach a deal for the government to directly pay landlords—big and small—for the duration of the pandemic.

Instead, Trump and Democrats put forward a patchwork system that tossed billions toward direct rent relief. But like most neoliberal programs, the programs became a bureaucratic nightmare for tenants to actually receive the money. In December, Congress doled out $25 billion in rental assistance and another $21.55 billion in March. But as Vox reported, the administration of the patchwork, state-by-state system led to tenants lacking awareness of the available relief money, missed application deadlines, and programs closing by the time tenants became aware.

From Vox:

“Getting money into the hands of renters has been exceedingly complicated — the National Low Income Housing Coalition has found over 340 different programs attempting to administer the federal aid. Some programs require onerous documentation; others don’t make it easy for landlords to apply and most put the onus on tenants to provide extensive proof of need. And Ashbes is far from unique; many advocates Vox spoke with said tenants often don’t even know the aid is available to them. All of this underscores the difficulty of aiding those at highest risk of eviction.”

Meanwhile, as progressive Peter Dao noted on Twitter, the NY Times and corporate media have been manufacturing consent for President Biden as the heir apparent to FDR—despite the president and Democratic Party doing nothing to permanently protect tenants headed to the streets soon.

By Biden’s own words as a candidate, real journalists could challenge him now for allowing Americans to get booted out of their homes through no fault of their own. During the Democratic Primary, Biden repeatedly said COVID-19 treatment should be free.

“All free, you don’t have to pay for a thing,” Biden said in the final one-on-one debate with Senator Bernie Sanders. “We’re at war with the virus.”

Of course, this was bullshit. Just read the horror stories of COVID patients saddled with million-dollar hospital bills. But by Biden’s phony standard on healthcare—that we’re at war with a virus so we’ll have to temporarily pause the almighty dollar—where in the hell is the progressive pressure for the same standard to be applied to housing?

Just as the corporate media and in-the-majority Democratic Party sat quietly in worship of President Obama as he allowed millions of working-class Americans to be foreclosed on in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, we now have a corporate media and in-the-majority Democratic Party quiet as a mouse as families face the loss of shelter because capitalism tops COVID and people.

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Jordan Chariton