Stock-trading app Robinhood has come under fire from the public and lawmakers after it restricted users’ ability to buy stock in GameStop and other downtrodden companies targeted by investors on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum.
The investors purchased massive amounts of stock in GameStop and others to pump up its price, thus squeezing hedge funds who were hoping to profit from the companies’ demise.
The Redditors actions caused GameStoop’s stock to skyrocket 1,5000%. However, Robinhood’s restrictions caused the stock to plummet back down.
Robinhood’s actions have been seen by many as the perfect example of how those in power will seek to protect the wealthy at the expense of the everyman. It also calls into question the app’s name. After all, what is a company named after the titular hero who “stole from the rich to give to the poor” doing standing in the way of people of more modest income’s making a profit off the predatory practices of the ultra wealthy?
The financial company’s decision to thwart a populist victory has angered lawmakers. Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the House Financial Services Committee called the company’s actions “unacceptable.”
Surprisingly, Ocasio-Cortez drew agreement from one of her fiercest adversaries, Republican Senator Ted Cruz. Cruz has recently given himself a political makeover, rebranding himself as a Trumpian populist in an attempt to lure the former president’s base of support. Because no one can deny the strategic brilliance of aligning yourself with a man who called your wife ugly and accused your dad of assassinating John F. Kennedy.
Cruz’s Wall Street- bashing feels pretty disingenuous, especially because he’s married to a managing director at Goldman Sachs.
The senator signaled his support in investigating Robinhood by retweeting AOC and saying, “Fully agree.”
A bipartisan moment of healing? Not exactly.
While ordinarily, most House members would happily accept that type of support from the other side of the aisle, Ocasio-Cortez wants no business with Ted Cruz. The Trump sycophant broadcast Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being rigged, all the way up to objecting to Congress certifying the election results. His efforts to undermine democracy gave credence to those who rioted at the Capitol and put the lives of countless lawmakers in danger.
So, Ocasio-Cortez rejected his support with one of the fiercest comebacks’ in political Twitter history. “Happy to work w/ almost any other GOP that aren’t trying to get me killed. In the meantime if you want to help, you can resign.”
She then took things a step further by demanding an apology for “serious physical + mental harm you contributed to from Capitol Police & custodial workers to your own fellow members of Congress.”
Aside from the profoundly sick burn AOC dropped on Cruz, she’s holding her head high by remaining open to working with other Republicans on potentially investigating RobinHood and others involved in the GameStop stock phenomenon. Congress needs more bridge building, more consensus, more putting aside of strident partisan positions in favor of constructive middle grounds. But nobody should have to find common ground with a co-worker who at worst directly inspired domestic terrorists who wanted to murder them and at best has refused to fully condemn those actions.
