In an appearance on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show on Monday, Kamala Harris called Donald Trump a “tyrant.” That much wasn’t surprising or interesting. As the second Trump administration has mounted ever more brazen assaults against free speech, due process, and universally guaranteed citizenship over the course of the last eight months, numerous Democrats and progressives have called Trump a “tyrant.” The divide among anti-Trump forces has centered on whether to exclusively focus on the broadly pro-democracy message (“no kings”) or to integrate it with the broader critique of “oligarchy” offered by politicians like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), and Zohran Mamdani.
In her subsequent comments to Rachel Maddow, though, former Vice President Harris went in another direction entirely.
We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators. That’s what we’re dealing with right now in Donald Trump. And these titans of industry are not speaking up!
The contrast between this and the “Fighting Oligarchy” message could hardly be starker. Where Sanders and AOC have been crisscrossing the country promoting the message that Trump should be rejected because he’s a servant of wealthy and powerful “titans of industry,” Harris wants to appeal to the oligarchs themselves to save us from the “communist” Trump.
California governor Gavin Newsom recently took a similar line. In his appearance on the Pivot podcast, Newsom responded to host Kara Swisher’s question about Mamdani by bringing up Trump’s deal with Intel, whereby the government agreed to buy almost 10 percent of the company’s stock.
Mamdani and Trump, the governor suggested, weren’t so different. Newsom said it “sounds like Trump’s been paying a lot of attention to” Mamdani, given Trump’s “desire to socialize great American companies.” Just like Mamdani wants to start a few municipally owned grocery stores in…
Auteur: Ben Burgis
