Lina Khan has probably been the best and most effective bureaucrat in my lifetime.
If she ends up replacing Lina Khan I’ll lose all hope for this administration.
My impression has been that Harris is indicating that her economic policy will move in the opposite direction with her talk of “price-gouging”. Is there a reason to think she will do what this article suggests, other than the fact that some donors are asking her to?
Well, to start, politicians will say anything to get elected, so their words mean absolutely nothing, regardless of party affiliation.
This article was the first I’d even heard about Harris potentially ousting Kahn, so that’s potentially a good sign. However, Kahn and the FTC have been taking swings at the oligarchs via their Google monopoly lawsuits, going after Apple, etc.
Harris (and Walz) are centrist Democrats, they are not progressive. A progressive candidate would be calling for the minimum wage to match where it’d be if it was tied with inflation, around $26/hr, not bringing up the $15/hr debate that should’ve been done a decade ago. She hasn’t signalled support for Medicare for All as far as I remember, she went back on her promise not to expand fracking, and she’s made no mention of enshrining LGBTQ+ rights into law or stopping weapons sales to Israel (she has said their would be contingencies, so she still agrees to help the guy actively working against her with her opponent), all progressive ideas.
So, she likely doesn’t support these things because her party, and more importantly, the donors who line their pockets, don’t want her to. She’s a career Democrat, she’s not that much younger than Biden in comparison to someone considered progressive, like AOC, so her policies are going to closer align with the Status-Quo centrist Democrats versus the We-Need-Change-Now progressive Democrats.
Tl:dr: Harris is a centrist Democrat whose party (and by extension, her party’s wealthy donors) do not want progress made, they want a return to the status quo, as their policies have shown (Palestine, M4A, Fracking, etc). Her donors likely don’t like that the FTC chair actually has a backbone, and since the status quo is more important to the Democrat Party (look at how they treated Bernie) than progress. So, the donors are likely pressuring her behind the scenes to put a Garland-esque Chair in charge of the FTC: someone with no backbone.
She is 21 years younger than Biden, and I’m not sure you have actually read her voting record. It’s quite progressive for a us democrat
The examples I gave have been from her campaign this year, I’m glad she’s voted progressively compared to most US Democrats, but she is campaigning as a moderate.
As for her age, yeah, I’m glad we don’t have someone who’s an octogenarian running, but she’s closer to Biden’s age than she is AOC’s, an actual progressive Democrat.
Worth noting that AOC is the youngest a president can be. Harris is 3 years younger than Obama.
Age also does not determine if someone is progressive, liberal, or conservative.
I don’t get this. Y’all on Lemmy are constantly screaming about, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them,” about people like Trump and the GOP, but you won’t acknowledge the same about Democrats.
You’re right, Bernie is older than Biden, and some of the Squad are in their 40s/50s. I never said otherwise. And AOC is the youngest a president can be.
Bernie ran on a progressive platform, Biden did not, and Harris is not, by her own admission. The Squad have progressive ideas they push and campaign on, Harris and Walz have not shown support for these same policies. She’s showing all of us that is not a progressive candidate, which is all this discussion is about.
She’s the far better candidate compared to Der Orange, no one should be voting for Trump. This isn’t a “y’AlL nEeD tO vOtE tHiRd PaRtY” comment, or one telling anyone to stay home, or any of that.
Harris is just not a progressive candidate, and a 60 year old woman who’s lived her entire life in the upper middle class has much less in common with the average person than someone like AOC.
That’s what this whole comment chain was about: someone asked why Harris may have pressure behind the scenes to oust Kahn as FTC chair, and that would be the only reason I could think she’d do it: her wealthy donors want a less progressive FTC chair so they’ll stop going after the oligarchs, and Harris’s campaign seems to be very “return to the status quo” like the Democrats always seem to be doing.
YOU need to acknowledge that how someone campaigns is less reflective of their position than HOW THEY VOTE.
I have, and even told you I hope she continues to follow her progressive voting record and prove me wrong.
But based on her campaign, I don’t understand why you’re all acting like she’s a hugely progressive candidate. She’s just not, I’m sorry, but she’s not.
By 4 years. Harris is pretty in between AOC and Biden age wise. There are members of the squad who are in their late 40s/early 50s. And Bernie is older than Biden.
I don’t get this. Y’all on Lemmy are constantly screaming about, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them,” about people like Trump and the GOP, but you won’t acknowledge the same about Democrats.
You’re right, Bernie is older than Biden, and some of the Squad are in their 40s/50s. I never said otherwise. And AOC is the youngest a president can be.
Bernie ran on a progressive platform, Biden did not, and Harris is not, by her own admission. The Squad have progressive ideas they push and campaign on, Harris and Walz have not shown support for these same policies. She’s showing all of us that is not a progressive candidate, which is all this discussion is about.
She’s the far better candidate compared to Der Orange, no one should be voting for Trump. This isn’t a “y’AlL nEeD tO vOtE tHiRd PaRtY” comment, or one telling anyone to stay home, or any of that.
Harris is just not a progressive candidate, and a 60 year old woman who’s lived her entire life in the upper middle class has much less in common with the average person than someone like AOC.
That’s what this whole comment chain was about: someone asked why Harris may have pressure behind the scenes to oust Kahn as FTC chair, and that would be the only reason I could think she’d do it: her wealthy donors want a less progressive FTC chair so they’ll stop going after the oligarchs, and Harris’s campaign seems to be very “return to the status quo” like the Democrats always seem to be doing.
But her age has very little to do with that. Her being closer in age to Biden than AOC is totally irrelevant.
Removed by mod
I didn’t come back to Lemmy for five hours, and you and the other person both basically said the same thing. So you both got a combined answer of your comments.
Glad you’ve resorted to insults when all I’ve done is give you what Harris is showing us and saying to us. But yep, someone challenged your position, and instead of acknowledging that it may not be as steady as you initially thought, you accuse them of being a bot, and then insult them.
“recent calls from some allies …”
Who? What allies? Could this be any more vague. The article gives no hints as to who these mysterious unnamed “allies” are and no evidence of anyone, donor or not, calling for her removal. Nor has Harris or anyone from her campaign so much as hinted of any plans or feelings of wanting to oust Khan. Other than Mark Cuban, all the tech bro/oligarch types are Trump allies, not Harris donors.
Sounds like just another piece trying to stoke rumors and stir up division.
Dems Rally to Save Lina Khan After Mark Cuban Puts Target on Her Back
https://newrepublic.com/post/186971/bernie-sanders-aoc-lina-khan-mark-cuban
Thanks for the additional info. I’d call this “anticipatory worry/outrage” as a parallel to how the oligarchs ceding to Trump is called “anticipatory obedience”.
Just because Cuban supports her and may expect obedience in return, I seriously doubt Harris would do it, especially as she is running as a previous DA/AG who went after lenders and others to protect the consumer, and has campaigned on going after ‘price gougers’ and others who harm the middle class. For her to turn around and get rid of Khan would fly in the face of all that and wreck her credibility right off the bat. I can’t see why she would consider doing that.
Having seen her progressive voting record I wouldn’t have expected her to campaign as a “moderate” and go back on every progressive stance she ever held either. In short, I don’t trust her to be consistent.
There’s no way she’d have even a chance of winning if she hadn’t campaigned that way.
I disagree, I think if she had campaigned as the most progressive Democrat in history that would have sparked a massive wave of new support, but it would have put her campaign up against a lot of wealthy and powerful people. She chose the easy path by cozying up to capital interests, and this strategy gets us nowhere. At best it staves off the worst of the growing fascist movement for a time, but at the same time moves the needle further to the right. I think it’s shortsighted.
Wow, you have a very unrealistic understanding of where the American electorate is if you think running as “the most progressive Democrat in history” could get anywhere close to a majority, If someone could win that way, they’d certainly be trying it. Enjoy living in that bubble!
I believe a large portion of the electorate that vote Democrat are liberals who weren’t fans of Biden but hated Trump, and intended to vote for Biden only to prevent Trump from winning. Kamala would not lose this contingency of voters even if they think Kamala is too progressive, but she would gain new voters who previously felt unrepresented. Only anti-Trump conservatives (a tiny but admittedly growing voting bloc) might jump ship.
Kamala chose to appeal to conservatives to steal votes from Trump and because it gets her more wealthy donors. It’s possibly a winning strategy, but it is not the only one, and this one abandons the progressive voting bloc in favor of conservatives in a time where younger people are trending leftwards. This is a move that will have long-term consequences.
whatever, and you enjoy losing to a republican instead of a dem pretending to be one.
Americans want police reform, guns out of schools, a public option, judicial term limits, weapons to Israel to stop. Biden/Harris have been against all of these things and each of tnem cost her votes and voter enthusiasm. She could have won easily by embracing all of those. Tacking to the center has gotten very few republicans onboard, which is evidenced by the way she has been losing ground to trump steadily all month.
Campaigning this way has hurt her chances.
Do you not remember during the housing crisis?
Kamala Harris Has To Answer For Not Prosecuting Steve Mnuchin
Keep Khan and ditch Harris if it comes to that.
Shutup preemptively we’ll make it work with the power of wanting it really bad
Elect Kahn
It’s worth acknowledging that Kamala Harris’ 12th largest campaign donor is Alphabet inc according to opensecrets.org
Progressives need to start finding a primary challenger for 2028 as soon as the polls close. Democrats will feel no leftward pressure otherwise and we’ll be unprepared if we wait.
We were frankly cheated out of a primary this year. The last primary without a preordained winner was 2008. We cannot let this become any more normal than it already has.
Yeah, Hillary “the annointed” went over swell and the DNC has apparently learned exactly zip from the experience. They’re never going to serve the interests of people, only of Capital.
Agreed, which is why progressives need to start as early as possible.
lol, with what leverage?
Hence why they need to get a primary candidate early. If you can think of some other way to exert pressure, I’m all ears.
First you have to figure out what’s going to prevent the DNC from simply saying, “nuh uh.”
To having primaries? I mean sure, if they want to go completely mask off and stop pretending to be a democratic anything.
It sounds like you don’t yet understand that the DNC has full authority to determine who is allowed to percolate to Party designated positions. This is why when the DNC kneecapped Bernie Sanders, the courts said,“nah it’s a private party- they can do as they please.”
So, my point- if progressives did find a candidate to champion, there would be nothing preventing the DNC from simply saying, “no.”
finding a primary challenger for 2028
I love how “switching the incumbent is traditionally suicidal but it may work this time; so let’s try to fail next time” is how the conservative moles try to influence the next election.
When are you guys going to start calling yourselves Marxists/Communists, instead of hiding behind some newspeak label?
Because different folks define those differently.
A democratic socialist is very different from what most people think of when they hear communist.
Also I’m very left leaning but still like some aspects of capitalism. It just needs to be regulated or else monopolies eat everything and turn capitalism into feudalism.
In the US, there are still a lot from McCarthy-era sentiment and “Communist” is a pejorative within the general population. For instance, The Communist Control Act of 1954 is still on the books. Though it has issues as a law for being really vague, and hasn’t been used seriously against leftist organizing on account of that, it nonetheless remains and has never been outright challenged to the Supreme Court of the United States. Either way, it had a chilling effect, and was pretty successful as part of the US’s broader campaign to demonize communism and communist organizing.
Because of the way “Communism” and “Marxism” are used within US press and mainstream politics (especially by the Republican party), the average voter is conditioned to view them as bad words accordingly. The Democratic party, trying to court “moderate” voters within the political landscape here, all but refuses to touch those words with a 10-foot pole. It’s not part of their brand (and not part of their policy either, not by any stretch of the imagination).
Progressivism in my view is an umbrella term, but still pretty linked with liberalism as a movement in the sense that it’s mostly reformist, and acts a subgroup within the Democratic party. Most “Progressive” candidates for US political office are SocDems at most.
You can call it newspeak, but political movements arise under new/different names as the situation dictates, and often refer to different things. I’d argue that the point of newspeak within 1984 was actually to limit the evolution of language and restrict the development of new words/ideas, but I do get where you’re coming from on account of “progressive” being considered more politically correct.
Harris is too far to the center right and too donored up by elites to be progressive
People said the same thing about Biden and he’s the one who appointed her.
Biden’s move leftward has been glacial in pace, measurable not by observation but by geological record and only by massive external pressure.
Harris is much younger. We could see change from her.
Frankly she’s already gone. Harris had way too many billionaire Tech Bros donors who are worried about being regulated in any way for her to keep what has been the best part of the Biden Administration by far.
“Provoke a confirmation fight” that by itself makes me doubt she’s “already gone”. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong though.
I don’t see why you would need to provoke a confirmation fight if she doesn’t nominate her in the first place. Which is what I’m sure is going to happen.
… can you read? She’s in place now. When her term runs out she will remain there until the next president nominates someone else. If they do, there will be a fight. Harris DOES NOT NEED TO NOMINATE HER FOR HER TO REMAIN IN PLACE. A confirmation fight happens only if she nominates someone to replace her. Harris doesn’t need to nominates her, only not nominate someone else, and she will stay.
That’s not exactly how it works. They don’t stay in place. Come January they will all offer their resignation. That’s how it works every new term. Harris of course can refuse to accept their resignations, and thus keep them in place. That’s not unheard of. However there’s no way she won’t offer her resignation. That’s why every new presidential term isn’t started with the new president publicly firing everybody.
So if she turns in a resignation, and harris accepts it… confirmation fight to find a replacement. If she doesn’t accept it… no confirmation fight. And I don’t think it’s law that they turn in resignations. It’s tradition. But that’s not relevant, if harris wants rid of her either through firing, or accepting a resignation, it will be one more political fight
It’s not law you’re right it’s just happened every single new presidential term in the history of our country. Not turning in their resignation would be such a breach of etiquette that even I think it would be justified to fire her at that point, that’s how ingrained it is into the American system of government. But it won’t be a fight. She will hand in a resignation and if Harris wants to accept it there’s nothing anyone can do. There’s no politics involved. It’s just the executive.
Also the new nominee won’t be a fight.
Looking it up Powell had to be pushed, and it was because he explicitly wanted to fire him. But ignore that. I’ll give you 100 percent of that. I’m sure I’m technically wrong on the first paragraph. Infact I’m factually, technically, practically, spiritually, and obviously wrong.
“Also the new nominee won’t be a fight” …
I live in a world where, even having a majority, congress struggles to tie it’s shoe laces. Every few years they break and shut the whole thing down. I don’t think our realities match up. I don’t think I can see your point, I don’t think you can see mine. I don’t think we have eyes that can look through the same glass.
Honestly, filibustering any nominee to Khan’s right would finally get centrists to get rid of the fucking filibuster.
In before “But… but… whatabout Trump!”
Valid fucking questions though, he’s worse in every meaningful way.
Of course he is.
He’s not the bar we need to rate everybody against, though. Being better than Trump is not enough. Let’s hold our government to reasonable standards.
That’s the problem with the first-past-the-post voting system. It necessarily limits you to two choices, which frequently means you’re merely picking the one you dislike least.
Abd the problem with the Democratic Party is that they take advantage of this.
Indeed.
When the fascists have been driven out of the public sphere, we’re going to have to do something about that.
Democrats have no interest in driving the fascists from the public sphere. Without fascists, what would Democrats threaten us with every time we want better?
I have an interest in driving out the fascists from the public sphere. The best way to do that is to marginalize them as much as possible.
They control the Republican party, so the Republican party must end. And the best way to do that right now is to boost their most viable challenger.
That requires a bar to hold the democrats too, and right now that bar is dolled up in orange spray paint and lieing on the floor somewhere. The issue for the modern america is to resolve the spoiler effect. Without a third party there is no “voting in favor” of someone there is “voting against” someone else.
Neat theory-crafting but tbh idgaf who the current or next FTC Commissioner is as long as we avoid another Trump Admin. The worst case Harris outcomes don’t scare me in the slightest.
