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2019-01-15T15:33:08+00:00

Democratic 2020 hopefuls pay lip service to the left. Don't be fooled..$$$$$$$ Democratic 2020 hopefuls pay lip service to the left. Don't be fooled Bhaskar Sunkara THE GUARDIAN FULL ARTICLE Likely candidates are begging for Wall Streets support and reminding us who really owns American democracy Tue 15 Jan 2019 06.00 EST Last modified on Tue 15 Jan 2019 06.02 EST Cory Booker and Kamala Harris are among those who have been making a very different pitch of late on Wall Street. Photograph: Pool/Getty Images Its a framing thats been everywhere over the past two years: the Resistance v Donald Trump. By some definitions that resistance even includes people like Mitt Romney and George W Bush. By almost all definitions it encompasses mainstream Democrats, such as the likely presidential hopefuls Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Kirsten Gillibrand. In their rhetoric and policy advocacy, this trio has been steadily moving to the left to keep pace with a leftward-moving Democratic party. Booker, Harris, and Gillibrand know that voters demand action and are more supportive than ever of Medicare for All and universal child care. Gillibrand, long considered a moderate, has even gone as far as to endorse abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and, along with Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders single-payer healthcare bill. Harris has also backed universal healthcare and free college tuition for most Americans. But outward appearances arent everything. Booker, Harris, and Gillibrand have been making a very different pitch of late on Wall Street. According to CNBC, all three potential candidates have met with financial executives lately, including Blackstones Jonathan Gray, Robert Wolf from 32 Advisors and the Centerbridge Partners founder Mark Gallogly. Wall Street, after all, played an important role getting the senators where they are today. During his 2014 senate run, in which just 7% of his contributions came from small donors, Booker raised $2.2m from the securities and investment industry. Harris and Gillibrand werent far behind in 2018, and even the progressive Democrat Sherrod Brown has solicited donations from Gallogly and other powerful executives. When CNBCs story about Gillibrands courting of Wall Street came out, her team responded defensively, noting her support for financial regulation and promising that if she did run she would take no corporate Pac money. But whats most telling isnt that Gillibrand and others want Wall Streets money, its that they want the blessings of financial CEOs. Even if she doesnt take their contributions, shes signaling that shes just playing politics with populist rhetoric. That will allow capitalists to focus their attention on candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who have shown a real willingness to abandon the traditional coziness of the Democratic party with the finance, insurance and real estate industries. Gillibrand and others are behaving perfectly rationally. The last presidential election cost $6.6bn advertising, staff, and conventions are expensive. But even more important than that, they know that while leftwing stances might help win Democratic primaries, the path of least resistance in the general election is capitulation to the big forces of capital that run this country. Those elites might allow some progressive tinkering on the margins, but nothing that challenges the inequities that keep them wealthy and their victims weak. Big business is likely to bet heavily on the Democratic party in 2020, maybe even more so than it did in 2016. In normal circumstances, the Democratic party is the second-favorite party of capital; with an erratic Trump around, it is often the first. The American ruling class has a nice hustle going with elections. We dont have a labor-backed social-democratic party that could create barriers to avoid capture by monied interests. Its telling that when asked about the former Colorado governor John Hickenloopers recent chats with Wall Street political financiers, a staff member told CNBC: We meet with a wide range of donors with shared values across sectors. Plenty of Democratic leaders believe in the neoliberal growth model. Many have gotten personally wealthy off of it. Others think there is no alternative to allying with finance and then trying to create progressive social policy on the margins. But with sentiments like that, it doesnt take fake news to convince working-class Americans that Democrats dont really have their interests at heart. Of course, the Democratic party isnt a monolith. But the insurgency waged by newly elected representatives such as the democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ro Khanna, and others is still in its infancy. At this stage, it isnt going to scare capital away from the Democratic party, its going to make Wall Street invest more heavily to maintain its stake in it. Men like Mark Gallogly know who their real enemy is: more than anyone else, the establishment is wary of Bernie Sanders. It seems likely that he will run for president, but hes been dismissed as a 2020 frontrunner despite his high favorability rates, name recognition, small-donor fundraising ability, appeal to independent voters, and his teams experience running a competitive national campaign. As 2019 goes on, that dismissal will morph into all-out war. Wall Street isnt afraid of corporate Democrats gaining power. Its afraid of the Democrats who will take them on and those, unfortunately, are few and far between.