Progressive Primary Victories Have Corporate Democrats Panicking

The success of democratic socialists has led to an establishment backlash, fueling divisions over how to respond

By Norman Solomon, The Guardian

A recent chair of the Democratic National Committee apparently wants democratic socialists to get out of his party. “If you hate the Democratic Party, then please don’t run for our nomination,” Jaime Harrison tweeted on election day last week, shortly before results showed that three of those socialists had won Democratic primaries for Congress in deep-blue New York City. He didn’t identify his targets, but the implication was clear.

Harrison’s call for self-expulsion was the bizarre opposite of a welcome mat: “Don’t use our resources. Don’t rely on our volunteers. Don’t use our infrastructure. Don’t ask Democrats to invest their time, money, and energy in your campaign.” The tweet turned reality on its head. Socialist candidates have been winning because they inspired multitudes of people to volunteer and provide what’s needed to win.

The little tirade from Harrison attracted a lot of attention, with more than 5m views on X. What’s widely known about him is that he served as Joe Biden’s DNC chair for four years after running for the Senate from South Carolina in 2020, when he raised a record $130m and lost to the Republican senator Lindsey Graham by 10 points. But little-known information about Harrison puts his evident broadside against socialists in context.

Between 2008 and 2016, when Harrison worked as a lobbyist for the powerhouse firm the Podesta Group, he represented scores of huge corporations. They included Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway, Boeing, BP, General Motors, Google, Lockheed Martin, Merck, Oracle, United Technologies, Walmart and Wells Fargo. He also lobbied for trade associations like the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity and the National Mining Association.