Biden-Harris and why the Democratic Party Does Not Care About US
Kamala Harris was a predictable VP pick, completely in line with what the 2020 Democratic Party establishment represents, and the type of candidate it rewards. Kamala’s selection as Biden’s running mate (and as of 8/13/2020, likely 2024 Democratic nominee for POTUS) is another example of the modern neoliberal Democratic Party’s elevation of style over substance. Liberals can now check their diversity box since we have a black/Indian-American woman candidate on the ticket. Hollywood gushed all over Twitter, Big Tech and Wall Street breathed a huge sigh of relief and professional managerial class liberals & never-Trumper MSNBC pundits enthusiastically barked their approval.
So what about the rest of us who are not Zuck, Jamie Dimon, Debra Messing, Anna Navarro or your rich aunt in Marin County?
There’s no doubt that Kamala has a strong resume. She is an Obama-approved Senator from California with a national profile who effectively used her prosecutorial skills to shine during Congressional hearings, and was 2020’s early front-runner for the Democratic nomination for POTUS. She had a huge launch to her primary campaign, initially netting more billionaire donors (46) than anyone in the early field back in November 2019. She had a strong early debate using hard-hitting canned lines about bussing effectively targeted at Joe Biden, although that later backfired when it was revealed that she actually supported the policies she was publicly deriding. It was all downhill after that though, as her campaign never recovered from 60 seconds of fire from Tulsi Gabbard on her prosecutorial record. The end result was Kamala ending her campaign after polling at 3% nationally, 2% among Latino voters and 5th behind Andrew Yang in her own home state of California.
There is no electoral case for Kamala Harris. It’s pure symbolism and identity politics. Kamala’s electability was field tested during the 2020 primary, and she did not perform despite being a favorite of mainstream media, wealthy donors and a darling of the party elite. Despite her resume and approval by MSM and the donor class, she was unable to make a case to actual voters as to why she was running. She shifted on single-payer healthcare multiple times, seemingly ran on a platform based on hashtags, and when asked why her campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, she blamed racism and sexism for her failures, without owning up to her near-zero traction among young and minority voters. The only segment in which she performed reasonably well (12%) was among white college-educated professionals, all of whom are already voting for Biden.
Despite her failure in her first bid to run for the 2020 Democratic nomination, Kamala remained a favorite of the donor class, specifically BECAUSE she has a platform void of ideological substance. Her demonstrated fealty to corporations and the wealthy and a willingness to play ball in return for donations (see her support for the CA prison industrial complex and refusal to prosecute Steve Mnuchin who illegally kicked out thousands of California families out of their homes as Chairman of OneWest Bank during the 2008 Housing Crisis) were the reasons why she was the candidate of choice for billionaires during the first month of the Democratic primary, and why party elites pushed for her selection as Biden’s VP and eventual successor despite her demonstrated failure to reach voters.
You see, the Democratic Party in 2020 does not give AF about what its voters think. This is a party in which leaders are beholden to donors, and no one else. They’ve spent 3 years successfully convincing party faithful that Trump (with a magical no-look assist from Putin) is the singular existential threat to American Democracy while behind-the-scenes, mobilizing and killing off the actual existential threat to the source of their power: the insurgent progressive grass-roots activist segment of the party’s base represented by the Bernie Sanders campaign and its organic lead at the beginning of the 2020 Democratic primary.
Yea, but Trump is worse. Why should I care?
On the bright side, there were potentially worse picks than Kamala, and it would be nice to see some diversity in the Oval Office. At least he didn’t pick Condi Rice, I suppose. However, this is also the latest example of the Democratic Party cementing its now very public position as the party of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, while also kicking dirt in the face of everyone in the party to the left of Joe Biden.
However, an even more alarming trend has been the emergence of neocon Never-Trump Republicans into positions of prominence in the Biden campaign and liberal media. Let’s take a look at what else Democratic leaders and liberal media have done in the weeks leading up to Kamala’s selection:
1) Republican John Kasich, best known for being a union-busting conservative ideologue was one of the first Democratic National Convention speakers to be announced over fellow-Ohio politician and actual Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, pro-union populist who has reliably won congressional re-elections in a red state since the early 90s.
2) AOC, the most popular Democrat in the House, and the politician who represents the burgeoning young activist segment of the Left (the people who have been out in the streets for the past 3 months screaming for change) was denied a live speaking role, and instead given a 60-second pre-recorded segment recorded from home.
3) Andrew Yang, the candidate from the Democratic primary who won over the most 2016 Trump voters (41% of his support came from former Trump supporters) was left off the roster as well. Supposedly, the DNC has responded to public pressure and is giving him some yet to be defined time slot (most likely a pre-recorded minute like AOC).
4) Republican reactionary Anna Navarro was selected as the head of Latino outreach for the Biden campaign. Note: Biden is doing terribly among Latino voters in comparison to Hillary in ’16.
5) Republican grifter operatives Rick Wilson, Stuart Stevens and John Weaver head the most prominent Biden SuperPAC: The Lincoln Project. Why? Because they are neocons who like neolibs, look down on working class voters, and stand only for invading foreign countries, cutting corporate taxes and personal financial gain.
5) MSNBC management’s elevation of GOP strategist Nicolle Wallace to MSNBC’s daily lineup.
So what does this all mean for me?
The Democratic Party does not care about us. I don’t mean the small “us” in the literal sense, because as it pertains to me (and probably you if you’re reading this), the Democratic Party does represent people like me: meaning people who attended college and prep school with (& as) the children of wealthy and powerful, and who are currently part of the tech world/media/professional managerial class.
What I mean by us is, the big “US”: the 80% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, the 75% of us who can’t afford a $1,000 emergency, the 50% of wage earners earning <$30k a year, many of them front-line workers, most of whom do not get employer health insurance as a benefit of their employment.
By US, I mean young people who are part of the first generation of Americans in history projected to do worse than their parents, crushed by student debt that was made unforgivable thanks to the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill that Joe Biden championed.
By US, I mean small business owners forced to shutter family businesses due to COVID-19 and being shut out of relief funds by design.
By US, I mean the young people still in the streets today demanding that cops who murder innocent black people be held accountable.
By US, I’m talking about immigrants, children of immigrants, Muslims, atheists, natives of Puerto Rico, LGBTQ, homeless veterans, homeless normies, regular people suffering from mental health issues who can’t afford care, non-violent drug offenders, Uber drivers living in their cars…
Biden-Harris and the Democratic Party does not give AF about US.
But we can’t let Trump win. What can we do about it?
Yes, the threat of 4 more years of Trump is real and immediate. However, if you are in a blue state like: California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware or DC, please consider voting 3rd party, because right now, the “us” on the Left has been left without representation by party leaders who are giving platforms and positions of power to Republicans like Kasich, Navarro and Stuart Stephens over actual pro-working class leaders like Sherrod Brown, AOC and Andrew Yang.
You don’t have to gift your vote to candidates who refuse to even consider a single one of our policies that have majority support across party lines like: single payer, emergency UBI during a pandemic, weed legalization, ending our wars in the Middle East, a repeal of Citizens United, a rollback of the Patriot Act, demilitarization of police, comprehensive anti-corruption measures, reduction of the Pentagon budget.
If the Greens (and/or Libertarians) hit 5% they will qualify for federal election funding in 2024, creating a real path to break our system of political duopoly where both parties are subservient to corporations and the donor class.
If you are in a purple or red state, you’re not helpless either. There are several down-ballot races between young activist candidates and establishment incumbents that you can support with your votes and campaign contributions.
The one I have my eye on is Shahid Buttar in CA-12 vs Nancy Pelosi. IMO this is the most important race on the ballot besides POTUS.