Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She isStanding up with SonaliHer weekly television and radio show is broadcast on Free Speech TV and Pacifica. Her latest book is Standing Up: The Power of Stories in Pursuit of Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). She An economy for all Editor of the Independent Media Institute Project on Racial Justice and Civil Rights Yes! MagazineShe is a non-profit solidarity organization. Afghanistan Women’s Mission He is also a co-author Bloody AfghanistanShe also Justice Action CenterImmigrant rights organization. Produced by: An economy for alla project of the Independent Media Institute
Her 40 minutes speech On the final day of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled her plan for the nation’s economy, calling it “an opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete and succeed.”
I purposely chose to read her speech rather than watch it. The enthusiasm at this year’s Democratic National Convention was contagious. The Democratic Party has leaned into the language of progressive economic populism and is energized by younger, more enthusiastic candidates. But reading Harris’ speech instead of watching it allowed me to distance myself a little from the joy and made it clear that the Democratic Party has not yet embraced the language of progressive economic populism and continues to use the destructive language of the right.
The term “opportunity economy” itself is problematic. It was coined by a former Senate Majority Leader. Mitch McConnell It was used in 2019 to defend President Donald Trump’s economic policies. Florida Chamber of Commercea strongly pro-business organization, also uses it.
The word “opportunity” means chance, the creation of circumstances that make something possible. We live in a country where racial discrimination is technically illegal. That means people of color have the “opportunity” to attend elite schools, apply for jobs, build wealth, retire comfortably, and pass that wealth on to their children. These opportunities have existed for decades. Yet data repeatedly shows that this is not the reality, especially for Black and Brown people in the United States. Racial wealth gapFor one, it remains high. Structural barriers remain very much in place and would require very specific government intervention to dismantle them. Would Ms. Harris be open to dismantling those barriers?
Harris boasted at the Democratic National Convention. speech She “stood up to big banks, provided $20 billion to middle-class families facing foreclosure, and helped pass the nation’s first homeowners bill of rights.”
But she faced the banks as a prosecutor, not as a legislator or administrator, and her homeowners’ bill of rights was again based on the idea of ”opportunity.” 2017 Editorial She explained that the Bill of Rights is based on “six bills aimed at giving Californians a fair opportunity to work with banks, modify their loans and keep their homes.”
Harris pointed She proclaimed at the Democratic National Convention, “I’ve stood up for veterans and students who are being scammed by big for-profit colleges. I’ve stood up for workers who are being cheated out of the wages they deserve. I’ve stood up for seniors who are facing elder abuse.” Again, these are all laudable accomplishments she accomplished while serving as a prosecutor and attorney general for California. Will she stand up for the rights of veterans, students, workers and seniors, or will she simply give them a chance at justice?
There is a big difference between “opportunity” and “rights.” The former is a corporate and business-friendly term that is perfectly consistent with an individualist capitalist economy, where there are “winners” who take advantage of wealth-building opportunities and “losers” who don’t. But “rights” is a term that asserts a basic standard of fairness that everyone deserves. It encompasses the idea that people are equal, which capitalism frowns upon. right Health care, child care, education, housing, good wages, union jobs, and a stable climate. There are no winners or losers.
There was little discussion of such rights in the Convention. The New York Times She noted that Democrats have avoided raising Medicare for All, or the idea that everyone, not just some, should be entitled to taxpayer-paid health care. The Times’ Noah Weiland noted that “Her eschewing of a policy that was central to progressive Democratic aspirations underscores how quickly she has sought to define her candidacy with an appeal to more moderate voters, and that the Medicare for All proposal is, for now, effectively outside the Democratic mainstream.”
Instead of arguing that everyone has a right to taxpayer-paid health care, Harris said“We’re not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare. We’re not going back to when he tried to repeal Obamacare, when insurance companies could refuse to cover people with pre-existing conditions.”
She and her party appear to have given up on expanding government health insurance for all and instead gone on the defensive against Republican attacks on Medicare and the ACA.
Harris’ second favorite word after “opportunity” is “FreeShe used the word 12 times in her speech, replacing “rights” with “freedoms.” She mentioned “the freedom to live safe from gun violence in our schools, communities and places of worship; the freedom to love those we love openly and proudly.” She also touted “the freedom to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live free from the pollution that contributes to the climate crisis; and the freedom that unlocks all other freedoms: the freedom to vote.”
Clearly, Harris was trying to reclaim the word “freedom” from the Republican Party, which has been dragged to the far right by Republican lawmakers who call themselves “freedom” members.Freedom CaucusFreedom is like opportunity.
Indeed, Harris’ failure to embrace a more vocal progressive economic populism was a missed opportunity: given the cultural sea change we have witnessed as a result of capitalism’s failure, the conditions were ripe for her to lean into a rhetoric centered on people’s rights.
This shift was also evident at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. Look at how Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was received this year compared to the past two conventions. When Sanders spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, his role was Appeasing Progressives Party supporters who endorsed him for the Democratic presidential nomination. Just a few months earlier, he had urged voters to back Hillary Clinton, the centrist candidate who won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote to Donald Trump. Internal email leaked The Democratic National Committee report revealed how party insiders feel about Sanders, and it wasn’t a good one.
And four years ago, at the 2020 Democratic National Convention in Wisconsin, his role was to defend Joe Biden’s candidacy against Trump. pointed out“Many of the ideas we’ve fought for would have been considered ‘radical’ just a few years ago but are now mainstream.”
But this year, Sanders’ role was again to persuade his supporters to back a mainstream Democratic candidate. address His remarks at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago sounded surprisingly mainstream. The New York Times He identified him as an insider and said he seemed to have “a sense of legitimacy, that in his view, the Democratic Party has finally recognized that many progressive causes have broad support among the American people.”
Sanders hasn’t changed, but the party’s rhetoric has. Alexander Sammon “Mr. Sanders’ speech contained little of themes that other Democratic speakers had already covered on Monday and Tuesday,” he noted. The tone of the Democratic National Convention was noticeably different than it was four or even eight years ago, but Mr. Sanders now sounded at home, as the tone, if not the substance, of his political leanings has become mainstream.
Harris’ “opportunity agenda” language, on the other hand, leans to the right. At the Democratic National Convention, she said, “My mother had a strict budget. We lived within our means. But we didn’t want much, and she expected us to make the most of the opportunities available to us and be grateful for them.” Such words would come across as natural for a Republican to say, and reflect the party’s ideas about “fiscal responsibility.”
Harris also emphasized the difference between her and Trump, who advocates tax cuts for the wealthy, and advocated for “tax cuts for the middle class.” Republican core issuesEven if that party is delivering for the already wealthy despite its promises to the less well-off.
In reality, Harris is likely more economically progressive than she says she is. Supported The child tax credit is Popular And surprisingly, EffectiveBut she said nothing about it at the Democratic National Convention. Her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, said: Economically progressive policies.
Indeed, recent political party conventions seem designed to satisfy a small segment of the American public: undecided voters in battleground states, whose votes are crucial in determining who wins the Electoral College and thus the presidential election. In such an undemocratic system, politicians will always feel pressured to lean toward the center, since winning the popular vote is no guarantee of victory.
However, we live in an era where there is a growing movement to realize people’s economic “rights” through ideas such as: Universal Basic Income Planand compensation Rights for black people. A broader progressive movement has long called for Democrats to vocally defend the values they claim to represent them, to distinguish themselves from Republicans. Instead of moving to the right, using the Republican language of “opportunity” and “freedom,” Democrats can move to the left and neutralize people’s “rights.”
