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AUGUST

**12, 2020**

Kuttner on TAP

Kamala, Joe, and Wall Street

****

There was immense cheering among voters of color, environmentalists, and
activists for racial justice when Joe Biden let the world know that his
running mate would be Kamala Harris. It was second only to the cheering
on Wall Street.

A recent CNBC piece quoted one financial executive after another
expressing relief and jubilation
.
There was also joy in Silicon Valley, longtime Harris supporters
overripe for reform of monopoly power.

A Biden-Harris administration is unlikely to drastically alter business
as usual when it comes to the financial industry. And without such
radical reform, it's hard to see how we can alter the distribution of
income, wealth, and life chances except by redistributing within the
working and middle classes-not a great idea.

One antidote would be the appointment of Elizabeth Warren as Treasury
secretary. But the same Wall Street supporters of Biden-Harris will go
to great lengths to resist that.

The coverage of Harris has been mostly favorable, and has not paid much
attention to this aspect of her record.

As California AG, for example, she signed off on a settlement of the
subprime crisis that mainly helped banks at the expense of homeowners.

The most important reason for naming Harris, of course, was that she
would help Biden get elected, by raising the depressed turnout of 2016
among voters of color. The moment certainly required that Biden name a
Black woman, and Harris on several indicators was the best available.

What she does not signal is very much economic populism. It is a
familiar playbook. Go left on social issues, and stay safely
center-right when it comes to the Wall Street stranglehold on the
economy.

Given the widespread revulsion against Trump, this formula could work
better this year than in 2016. But getting Biden elected is necessary
but far from sufficient, if we are to prevent long-standing economic
grievances from producing another Trump in 2024.

Jesse Unruh, the longtime speaker of the California Assembly, famously
said of special-interest lobbyists, "If you can't eat their food,
drink their booze, screw their women and then vote against them you've
got no business being up here."

Let's hope that the general progressive shift of American politics and
the demands of the moment lead Biden and Harris to treat their Wall
Street allies with that same sort of contempt. That, however, will take
massive pressure from the grass roots, for economic as well as racial
justice.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

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