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July 29, 2024 - 8:30pm
Kamala Harris’s presidential bid has hit a sugar high. Her campaign announced that it has raised $200 million in its first week in existence. That’s an extraordinary sum, given that the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee combined raised $264 million between April and June of this year. A sign of grassroots engagement, this influx of donations aligns with recent polling by the Wall Street Journal which shows a surge in enthusiasm among Democratic voters now that Joe Biden has stepped aside.
Harris’s cash infusion didn’t fall out of a coconut tree. Like other parts of the Democratic establishment, elite donors had a marriage of convenience with Biden. When they thought that he was the most viable general election candidate against Donald Trump in 2020, they consolidated behind him. Those very same elites successfully discouraged any serious primary challenges to Biden in the 2024 cycle but broke with him after the June debate with Trump.
But this elite donor class now rallying around Harris could push her campaign in a direction that risks alienating working-class voters. These donors might, for instance, urge her to return to the “boardroom liberalism” of the Obama era by backing away from populist economics. The progressive economic analyst Matt Stoller has raised precisely this worry in a piece today for Compact, noting that major donors are pressing Harris to eliminate tariffs on goods from China as well as reverse the Biden administration’s aggressive approach to antitrust policy. A return to neoliberalism, Stoller warns, could “fracture the Democratic coalition”.
Elite donors could also raise risks for Harris on cultural politics. Essential for Biden’s victory in 2020 was his ability to seem at a distance from the vanguard of Left-wing identity politics. Harris ran well to the Left of Biden on social issues in the 2020 Democratic primary. In November 2020, she released a video dismissing “equality” and praising “equity”, which prompted Trump critic Andrew Sullivan to wonder whether she was endorsing “full-on Marxism”. Theoretically, she could try to reset her image on cultural issues for the 2024 election, but some major pro-Harris fundraising efforts have now tried to place her campaign firmly in the constellation of starry “wokeness”.
Consider, for instance, the gargantuan “White Women: Answer the Call” fundraising and organising Zoom event for Harris. This event’s organisers claim to have raised millions of dollars for her campaign and to have engaged thousands of volunteers. Saturated with invocations of “privilege”, the “patriarchy”, and “doing the work”, the event itself seemed like a re-education seminar from the summer of 2020. This kind of campaign might appeal to an NPR listener with a cultural studies degree, but it would seem obscure — maybe even weird — to a factory worker in Grand Rapids.
Working-class voters have shifted away from the Democratic Party over the past 30 years. In 1992, Democratic Congressional candidates handily won voters who had not graduated from college; by 2022, they lost that group by over 10 points. As the Democratic Party has increasingly become the redoubt of the educated elite, it has lost ground with the blue-collar voters who used to form the core of the party.
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SubscribeBut nowadays the ‘educated elite’ have become the elite which could afford to go to university and be indoctrinated. Not the same thing at all.
Not if you just cancel all their debt. That’s a major talking point I don’t think Trump has discussed substantially.
Koolaid tipplers all.
Additionally, with her astute legal mind, impartiality, informed judgment and inability to be fooled, I fully expect her to reimagine the American justice system.
“Jussie Smollet is one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know. I’m praying for his quick recovery. This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.” (Kamala Harris Twitter Jan 29, 2019)
Mega parasites who donate obviously want a return to 1000% Neo-liberalism. Like Biden, the parasites see an easily manipulated prey. Only Harris is much easier picking as she doest need to be mentally ill to accept their terms.
Democracy literally does not exist. Anyone who talks about democracy is a fool. Compact Mag focused on parasites like Hoffman, making an example of him must be a goal of the revolution.
It doesn’t matter if most Americans dislike her. She will win in a landslide, just like Maduro.
Billionaires and millionaires are bankrolling Harris’ campaign to be a voice for the forgotten. Sounds more than a tad unconvincing.
I
Billionaires and millionaires bankroll Harris’ campaign to represent everyday people. That sounds far less authentic than Trump’s pitch.
…Don’t take the magical raising of 200m at face value. Check this out: https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/07/29/smurphing-at-work-n3792421
So fundamentally the elite donors are not pushing Harris to the left at all. Instead they do what they have been doing for a long time: pushing for a radical right wing economic model of inequality, while using left wing cultural issues for window dressing and distraction.
Even though the data is pretty clear. If you really want to do something for marginalized groups – not just white factory workers but many minorities – you have to start with a fair and stable economy. It is also known that when people feel financially secure and receive good public services like education, they seem to become more liberal and tolerant on other social issues too.
Yes. “Left-washing” is a verb phrase that needs to become part of the lexicon
Everything revolves around having a roof and fa full belly.