Schultz Isn't A Candidate, He's a Warning Shot
It's been interesting to see the narrative take shape around Howard Schultz announcement that he's considering a run for president on an independent ticket.
The narrative took shape quickly, as Democratic pundits and lawmakers have been making the case that a Schultz independent run would only help Trump win again. Characteristically, the "moderate right" pundits have all either been decrying that Schultz would be a spoiler against any Democratic candidate or taking the perspective that he should run, because he's a decent candidate (which is kind of laughable, considering the number of gaffes he's produced in just a few days).
In the few days since Schultz announcement, he's made a number of media appearances, released a few statements and has generally been getting a ton of free press. Social media, most notably Twitter, has been taking aim at him early, often and in it's usual combination of hilarity and ugly bitterness. Schultz has already come out against a number of positions that have pretty strong support among the Democratic base. He more or less called Medicare for All and a 70% marginal income tax un-American. He's said that Alexandria Occasio-Cortez making a big splash with the suggestion of a 70% tax rate is part of why he began to consider a run. He hasn't said too much about what he's for, other than unity. How he thinks he's going to bring about this unity has he has yet to detail.
Today it was revealed that his internal polling data and his strategists have decided that the best bet for a presidential run is essentially to run on a platform of attacking Democrats. Today, social media and the pundit class are laying out a new salvo of attacks, mostly suggesting that this is how Trump ends up being elected for a second term.
The question that comes to mind is "Who do the Democrats think they are going to lose to Howard Schultz?"
We can pretty easily understand who they're not going to lose. Democrats are not going to lose the side of the party and the voters who are alternately either called "progressive" or "far left." That constituency has been responsible for the fact that almost every Democrat who has announced a possible run has come out in favor of Medicare for All or Universal Healthcare. They're also the wing of the party who have elevated Occasio-Cortez and her suggestion of the 70% tax rate to national stardom. AOC's endorsement is basically going to guarantee the delivery of the left wing to any candidate, with the possible exception of Joe Biden. If AOC for some reason were to endorse Biden or Mike Bloomberg (who is supposedly considering a run as a Democrat but has made no official announcement), it would cost her more than it would win him, certainly. They're not voting for a billionaire who thinks that growing up in the projects means he pulled himself up by his bootstraps and ignores or forgets that the top marginal tax rate at that time was roughly 90%. They're not going to vote for the guy who just basically called them un-American, in his quest for unity.
He's also not going to gain the people that are essentially the party faithful. If Schultz could win the Democratic primary and gain the nomination, they'd vote for him, but not as an independent. Like they're Republican counterparts, these are the folks who will vote for anyone the party nominates.
Are Democrats actually afraid that the non-voters are going to show up in droves to vote for the billionaire who decided they needed to call a medium "grande" and a large a "venti"? Being that non-voters tend to be over represented by the youngest, poorest and minorities (often, but not always, people who are all three), it's a stretch to suggest that another pasty billionaire is going to have them clamoring to get into the voting booths for the first time.
That leaves the constituency that is generally referred to as the "center-left." This is the wing of the party that considers itself the "pragmatists." Where progressives tend to favor attempts to gain sweeping changes, the centrists tend to suggest an incremental philosophy.
This is the constituency the Democratic Party must be afraid are most likely to jump ship if there is a Schultz campaign. It would make sense that he'd target the most sweeping suggestions of the progressives if this was the constituency he thinks he can win. The focus on the unity talking points also suggest this too. "Division in the country" has been a central focus of most self proclaimed moderates and centrists for a few years now. The question of just who is uniting seems less important than the prospect of unity itself. With the Republican Party having decided that a platform of racism and misogyny that's only concealed to people who are willfully blind to either, it's kind of hard to see large swaths of the country uniting with them for much of anything.
Democrats are worried that Schultz is going to pick up the embarrassed vote. These are the people for whom the election of Trump has primarily been just that, an embarrassment. They desperately want things to go back to "normal." This is to say that their personal feelings of embarrassment at the election of Trump, and the incredibly long list of embarrassing things he's said and done are foremost. They also aren't necessarily on board with his policies, but less so because of what those policies are currently producing than because they are a divergence from the politics and tone they prefer. The ugliness of his racism and sexism is somewhat less about the people it actually targets, and that it's produced skyrocketing numbers of hate crimes, but that it's embarrassing to be seen as the country that elected that fool.
There's another constituency the Democrats are probably worried about losing to Schultz, and if not directly to Schultz, then to a decision to just sit the election out: the donor class.
Schultz is the donor class. That he's so terrified by the possibility of an increase in the top marginal tax rate is in no way specific to him. The Davos conference was held recently, and it was a topic of conversation amongst the most wealthy and powerful people in the world. That they received pushback from academics at their own conference certainly left an impression. It also doesn't guarantee he'd vacuum up the donations that would have gone to a Democratic nominee if he didn't run, but it suggests at the least that Democrats will have some trouble among their big money donors. It's quit possible that being a billionaire himself, most of the rest of the donor class would expect him to self fund his campaign, but that as a protest for the threat of a higher tax rate, they withhold their donations from Democrats too.
This explains the level of anxiety being displayed by the Democratic Party at the possibility of a Schultz run. Schultz isn't a candidate. He's a warning shot across the bow of the Democratic Party.
Trump has been far too inconsistent and too impetuous, which creates anxiety and instability. His insistence on a trade war with China has been a drag on the international economy. He's not good for business, and even they can see that it's only a matter of time before his antics cause large scale upheaval, which is bound to be bad. Business is good when things are stable, so they've been placing their hope in the Democrats to bring back the stability that has allowed for them to increase their riches exponentially in the last few decades. The Republican Party is essentially no hope because they are fully 100% in support of whatever new lunacy Trump tweets out on a day to day basis.
Now though, the Democrats have a new crop of fire brands who are also promising to shake things up and whose popularity amongst the electorate can't be ignored. Their New Deal style politics and rhetoric are suggesting that even if Democrats can restore some semblance of stability, it's going to be personally costly to the donor class. It's a very different kind of upheaval, but it's an upheaval all the same.
Schultz is a warning to the Democratic Party that they need to get their people under control or the donor class is going to start trying to pull in the "socially liberal/fiscal conservative" voters from both parties. He's a warning that the donor class can and will start their own party, and they'll do everything they can to siphon off all the "moderates" that they can.
The assumption for years has been that if a genuine third party was going to arise, it was going to come from the left of the Democratic Party, but that looks to be turning into an error of judgment. The Democratic Party is deeply entrenched in American politics to a degree that the combination of it's loyalists and a newly energized left wing would be able to continue. The entire system of elections has been set up to keep third parties out. Democrats may lose a significant portion of the donor class, but the party as an entity would be able to survive. The left hasn't split off into a third party because they've never been able to generate the cash on their own, and without the access to media that the Democratic Party has, by nature of being one of the two major parties. The mid-term elections were proof that things have changed and the progressive left can generate enough media interest and enough campaign cash on their own. They're also exciting the loyalists and part of their mid-term success was focusing on new voters or non-voters who basically never show up for a mid-term election.
The donor class, being the donors, could split off into their own party, and has the money to make that party viable. They can afford media of every kind, and they can afford to grease the campaign coffers of enough members of both parties to get enough changes made to election law to make a third party viable (which is where the left has always known they were blocked). Where the progressive left is able to generate their own media, as is the right, the donor class can buy as much time or access as they need and frankly, they already get enough free publicity by just being the rich and powerful that they'd have the attention to begin with. Schultz announcement that he's just thinking about running is an excellent example of that.
The Democrats aren't worried that Schultz is going to cost them the election. They're worried that he's going to cost them a significant portion of their party and it's funding apparatus.