It’s great to see the Democratic Party eviscerated by one of their own.
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has taken a blowtorch to a Democratic Party. The party has been defined by opposition to President Trump and his Twitter feed; it has few principles left outside of democratic socialism.
It’s time for Republicans to get out the popcorn and enjoy the Democrat-on-Democrat political violence.
Republicans now have at least one liberal refugee who agrees when they say Democrats are lurching left of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Schultz said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) policies “will lead to a level of socialism” if she is allowed into the White House. Warren’s proposed 2 percent tax on citizens whose net worth exceeds $50 million is nothing more than class warfare, and Schultz agrees that it is a bad idea.
Ocasio-Cortez is the poster child for her party’s lurch to the left, and is a shining example of why a traditional liberal such as Schultz doesn’t see room in the party for a moderating voice. Cortez, who has advocated for a 70 percent marginal tax rate on income above $10 million, doubled down on her class warfare when she slammed Schultz on Twitter, writing, “Why don’t people ever tell billionaires who want to run for President that they need to ‘work their way up’ or that ‘Maybe they should start with city council first?’”
The more we learn about Howard Schultz, the more his story has become the embodiment of the American dream.
Business Insider reported on the incredible story of Schultz’s rise from extreme poverty to business success:
He was raised in a working-class Jewish family in Canarsie, Brooklyn. While his mother Elaine tended to him and his siblings full-time (she later became a receptionist), his father Fred held a series of blue-collar positions, including truck driver, factory worker, and cab driver. In 1961, when Schultz was 7 years old, his father broke his ankle while working as a truck driver picking up and delivering diapers. At the time, Fred had no health insurance or worker’s compensation, and the family was left with no income.
Schultz was raised in New York City housing projects and was the first college graduate in his family. It’s an amazing story, and he would have been a formidable candidate for the Democratic nomination in years past.
Targeting Schultz exposes the left for wanting the government, not people, to make decisions on the allocation of resources. The left thinks government-managed business is better; the result is an attack on some of the most successful CEOs in the country — those at Starbucks, Walmart, Amazon and Apple, to name a few.
The problem is that a government that spent us $22 trillion into debt isn’t better economic decisions than the CEO of a successful company.
Schultz also hammered California Sen. Kamala Harris or her statement that she wanted to abolish health care insurance and put all Americans into a government run health care system, calling it “not American.” Liberals who support the proposal include Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), as well as former Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro, Warren and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI).
Harris went as far as to say that private insurance should be abolished as part of her plan, when many more moderate Democrats want “Medicare-for-All” to be an option for those who choose to keep private insurance.
The Democratic Party — which was once center-left — now embraces far-left policy ideas that such as free college tuition, full forgiveness of student-loan debt, Medicare-for-All and massive tax hikes that would send our country down the same road as Venezuela.
Remember when the Democrats used the talking point that the Republican Party was too conservative for Ronald Reagan? Now we can say that the Democratic Party has become too liberal for presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Brian Darling is the president of Liberty Government Affairs, a public relations firm in Washington, D.C. He worked previously as senior communications director to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.
