We Need Howard Schultz to Run for President Like Starbucks Needs Cockroaches

The Democratic Party is finally willing to work for working people again. Schultz could really screw that up. 

by

It was inevitable that some socially liberal, economically center-right billionaire would run for president. So Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks, has nominated himself.

This is sheer poison. His story, that voters are hungering for a moderate who can solve problems, is malarkey. Here's what Schultz told The New York Times:

We have a broken political system with both parties basically in business to preserve their own ideology without a recognition and responsibility to represent the interests of the American people,” Mr. Schultz said in the interview.

“Republicans and Democrats alike—who no longer see themselves as part of the far extreme of the far right and the far left—are looking for a home.

No, Howard, we don't have a “broken political system.” We do have a broken economic system.

Politically, we have wall-to-wall Republican obstruction. And after three Democratic administrations that were far too Wall Street-afflicted, we are finally recovering a Democratic Party committed to working to benefit regular Americans.

Schultz could really screw that up. He is a social liberal who opposed Seattle's $15 minimum wage—just what we don't need. The political problem is that lots of suburban moderates, who defected to the Democrats in 2018 out of disgust with Trump, could vote for a guy like Schultz. And in a three-way, Trump could even get re-elected.

There is a long and depressing history of independents running as spoilers. The only time it broke to the advantage of the Democrats was in 1992, when the whacko H. Ross Perot took more votes from George H.W. Bush and helped Bill Clinton get elected with just 43 percent of the popular vote. In 2020, it would help Trump, because his hard-core 35 percent is not going to defect to support a Seattle latte billionaire.

There is already some chatter on social media about a Starbucks boycott. I'm not sure that would do the trick—he's no longer CEO—but a billionaire centrist proposing to save America from Trump is the last thing America needs in 2020.

Starbucks has a history of creating demands for products that consumers didn't know they needed. They should gag on this one.

A second Trump administration will cement a right-wing majority on the Supreme Court for a generation, and put our collective future in the hands of someone who will be virtually unchecked by our institutions. The country has shifted rightward, and the reverberations will ensue for potentially the next few decades. In this climate, a robust independent media ecosystem will be more important than ever. We're committed to bringing you the latest news on how Trump's agenda will actually affect the American people, shining a light on the stories corporate media overlooks and keeping the public informed about how power really works in this country.

Quality journalism is expensive to produce, and we don't have corporate backers to rely on to fund what we do. Everything we do is thanks to our incredible community of readers, who chip in a few dollars at a time to make our work possible. Any amount you give today will help us continue reporting on what matters to our democracy.

You can help power this newsroom by making a one-time donation or by becoming a member today.