Who’s Afraid of Howard Schultz? Democrats seem to be afraid he might give them a policy debate.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/whos-afraid-of-howard-schultz-11548893911
The way progressives are denouncing Howard Schultz, you’d think he is Donald Trump’s first cousin. The former Starbucks CEO said Sunday he might run for President as an independent in 2020, and Democrats have since been shrieking like teenagers at a horror movie. They seem to fear a policy debate, which is exactly why a Schultz candidacy could be good for the country, including Democrats.
Senator Elizabeth Warren wasted no time on Twitter deriding “billionaires who think they can buy the presidency to keep the system rigged for themselves while opportunity slips away for everyone else.” The Democratic pundit class, which means nearly every pundit, rushed to say Mr. Schultz should stick to grande cappucinos and leave politics to the professionals who . . . lost to Mr. Trump.
They’re trying to bully Mr. Schultz out of running, but along the way they’re making the case for why he should. Take economics, where Ms. Warren, Sen. Kamala Harris and other Democrats wants Americans to shut up and jump on their bullet train to Bernie Sanders’ utopia. On policy Mr. Schultz is closer to a John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton Democrat.
He grew up in the projects in Brooklyn, worked in sales at Xerox and built his global coffee company from next to nothing. “I thought that was the American dream, the aspiration of America,” he said this week. “You’re going to criticize me for being successful when in my company over the last 30 years, the only company in America that gave comprehensive health insurance, equity in the form of stock options, and free college tuition?”
One of Mr. Schultz’s supposed sins is saying that “I don’t think we want a 70% income tax in America.” This brought down the wrath of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old first-term Congresswoman whose claim to fame is winning one election, looking cool on Instagram, and proposing ways to spend other people’s money
Democrats might benefit from reacquainting themselves with the private economy and wealth creation, which is damaged by punitive taxation. Mr. Schultz could point this out in debates and note how the success of Starbucks allowed him to provide thousands of Americans with jobs, good health care, and the $30 million to help veterans navigate the workforce that Mr. Schultz has written about in these pages.
Mr. Schultz has also dared to question the wisdom and affordability of Medicare for All, which would cost well north of $30 trillion over 10 years. Democrats don’t want to hear this, but voters might. Americans may balk when they learn that Medicare for All would eliminate all private insurance, which Mr. Schultz rightly says is “not American.”
Democrats should want to have this kind of debate in their primaries lest they anoint a nominee whose ideas turn out to be too radical to defeat even Mr. Trump, or to govern successfully if they beat him. But Democratic elites don’t seem to want to hear anything that would interfere with socialism by acclamation.
Mr. Schultz must be bewildered by his reception given that he’s been an earnest and lifelong Democrat in good standing. He should ignore the public hazing from elites and run if he thinks he has something to offer.
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