I submit that in virtually
every political party, a distinction can be made between the “rank and file”
and the political elite. Kamala Harris may have lost to Donald Trump in the 2024
U.S. federal-presidential race in part because Harris had not spoken out enough
on economic issues amid soaring inflation on groceries and rents to gain
traction with Democratic and Independent voters who had had enough of the “woke”
ideological agenda, which includes, for example, moral pressure and even demands
that people announce their “pronouns” before speaking. Although President
Biden had initiated some anti-trust judicial action, the industry-oligopoly
of meat producers, for example, was left untouched. So too were the mega-grocery-store
chains. Kroger was later found to have spiked egg and milk prices above the
increased costs with impunity, yet Harris did not suggest that the Sherman or
Clayton anti-trust acts should be taken out of the garage for spin on the American
judicial highways that connect the rank-and-file party-members to party elites
mainly in New England, New York, and California. I contend that U.S. Senator
Bernie Sander’s anti-oligopoly speeches in conservative Congressional districts
gained such numbers in 2025 precisely because the Democratic Party’s elite had
lost touch with the party’s “rank and file” voters on economic issues.[1]
In early May, 2025, Faiz
Shakir, a top advisor to Sanders, castigated elected Democrats who want “to
talk down to” voters as if ordinary people are “just too dumb to understand the
general notions of powerful elites running” the show, presumably both in
politics and business.[2]
I don’t think it is lost on many Democratic voters that Democratic
office-holders taking campaign donations from oligopolistic companies have been
less than willing to urge the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute large
companies on the basis of restraint of trade. Virtually no elected official in
government who takes a significant amount of “corporate cash” would be willing
to propose a law strengthening anti-trust law such that governments in the U.S.
would have a duty to restore monopolistic and oligopolistic industries to market-competition
even if the existing firms are not colluding on price or other matters.
For example, since its early
days, Facebook (then Meta) has actively bought out budding potential
competitors. Social media became an oligopolistic industry in part because of
that strategy. Whether or not Meta has engaged in restraint of trade, the U.S.
Department of Justice could be given the legal mandate to break up the large
American social-media companies in order to bring about a competitive industry.
A monopolistic or oligopolistic industry cannot be counted upon to metamorphosize
itself naturally into a competitive market; rather, the reverse tends to occur.
Hence the need for government to act to perpetuate competition in industries.
This is not to say that Democratic
and Independent voters would or should accept Sanders’ platforms of “Medicare for
All” and free college-tuition at public colleges and universities. Rather, his “relentless
focus on economic policy” could have improved his party’s chances to retain the
federal presidency by countering “swing voters’ belief [that] Democrats are too
close to feckless institutions and too obsessed with culture war issues.”[3]
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, also a Democrat, observed about six months after the
2024 election, “We viewed people like Bernie as an outlier threat to the
institutional Democratic Party, when in fact what he was talking about and is
still talking about is the crossover message. And it pulls Trump voters back
into the Democratic coalition.”[4]
Both the Hilary-Clinton-dominated party elite in 2016, which was rather unfair
to Sanders, and the Kamala-Harris presumptive-nominee fiat in 2024 demonstrate
the lack of willingness of the party’s elite to select its nominees for
president by competitive (and fair, open) contests. This lack of political competition
mirrors the lack of economic competition that has continued to plague many American
industries at the expense of consumers.
Lest the attention on price-spikes from President Trump’s tariffs monopolize the public discourse on prices that American consumers must pay to have even staple products, another, more widespread, reason for higher prices may be right under their proverbial noses and yet many Americans, both as voters and consumers, may continue to be oblivious to the bad odor of greed that has fueled collusion not only within industries, but also between business and government. An anti-elite populism preached by Democratic candidates and office-holders who refuse corporate donations could really make a difference in setting the Democratic Party apart from not only Trump’s Republican Party, but also the status quo itself, whose gravitas can be likened to that of the Earth in its magnitude and relentlessness. Elites may have such a foothold in American politics and business that many party-members and consumers may be left with only a vague instinctual sense that “the gig is rigged.” For the powers that are able to frame the contours of debates on issues, including on which issues will be debated publicly, do so with a keen eye on retaining and even gaining power and wealth. Hence making the contours explicit, and uncovering the underlying vested interests, is vital to restoring bottom-up democracy and competitive markets in the United States. Faith in American democracy may boil down to the precipitate of ordinary people resisting entrenched, powerful interests even in their own political parties.
