AP
Kamala Harris’ slogan in her disastrous 2019 presidential bid was “For the People.”
Her rapid, ruthless installation as the Democrats’ presidential nominee shows that slogan no longer captures what she or her party are about.
Harris’ Democrats are America’s elite party, pure and simple.
And like elites everywhere, they will fight without quarter to maintain the power and privilege they have spent a lifetime to acquire — as President Biden just learned to his detriment.
The proof of this is legion. At the voter level, Democrats are now clearly the party of white college graduates.
Their support rises even more if college grads go on to get masters, doctorate, or professional degrees. Biden won 62% of voters with graduate degrees, per the Edison Research exit poll.
Democrats’ capture by elites is even more complete by other measures.
Democrat-friendly journalists and editors control virtually all of the legacy print and television media. Lawyers for both big corporate and plaintiffs’ firms overwhelmingly contribute to Democratic candidates. University professors are so liberal that they outnumber conservatives in even the most conservative discipline, economics, by nearly 5 to 1.
And let’s not forget Big Tech: More than 80% of contributions from employees at firms like Apple, Google and Nvidia flowed to Democrats in the 2020 election.
The consequences are huge.
Well-off and connected elites tend to use their power to obtain special favors, like the massive subsidies universities have secured or the public “investments” Big Tech got in the CHIPS and Science Act.
The elites live in neighborhoods protected by restrictive zoning laws and work in occupations shielded by expensive licensing requirements.
Their capture of American government — mainly through their chosen agent, the Democratic Party — has meant the last 20 years have worked out pretty well for them.
They don’t want change and will fight change agents at any cost.
So when Harris says she’s running for “the future,” what she means is she wants the future to look a lot like the recent past: More subsidies for the wealthy and the educated and more burdens placed on the working class.
This is a big reason why the Republicans have increasingly become the party of America’s workers.
Free trade with China and poorer countries has worked out great for colleges, who get Chinese students to pay full tuition, and for financiers making a killing on overseas investments.
Apple’s huge profit margins on its iPhone, which has reached as high as 60%, is possible only because the units are assembled overseas using cheap labor in places like China or Vietnam.
But the new global economy has not worked out as well for the Americans who used to build the things Americans buy. One study found that competition from China alone cost Americans nearly 2.4 million jobs.
These people used to be the Democratic Party’s backbone, but today they are the GOP’s.
Trump won 67% of the vote among whites without a college degree in 2020. To win, Republicans must maintain this landslide level of support with these voters.
Harris’ elite focus will be shown in even more relief as the campaign goes on.
Large-scale immigration helps elites because they contract with labor, while it hurts working-class native-born voters who must compete with immigrants for jobs.
Climate change policies, like the ones Harris wants, enhance elite status without harming them economically — but working-class voters can’t afford the increased costs of purchasing electric vehicles and switching their homes to renewable energy, and they work in occupations likelier to be reduced or eliminated by the transition away from fossil fuels.
These trends are not unique to America: Look at any developed country and you see the same thing.
University-educated elites, once the foundation of the center-right, are trending left on cultural and economic matters.
Working-class voters, faced with declining status and stagnant or declining incomes, are flocking to populist parties and personalities on the right.
This political transition is helping the GOP — despite the media narrative. Partisan identification surveys and registration trends have moved markedly in the Republicans’ direction during the Biden years.
The GOP might be on the cusp of an historic realignment if the party can capitalize on these trends.
Harris will be trapped by her coalition. She can’t pivot to working-class concerns like immigration and inflation, because her elite backers won’t let her.
If Trump and Republicans grasp this, they can run as the party that’s truly “for the people” – and win.
Henry Olsen, a political analyst and commentator, is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.