The "#NeverKamala" faction take it too far...but it's legitimate to ask policy questions.

[BainsBane]

183. Policy

Poverty and economic injustice. Riiiight.

A commitment to ending poverty so great that we see a series of proposals focused on the white male middle to upper middle class, efforts to disenfranchise and poor and people of color through extending the caucus system, and attacks on those public officials who managed to work their way out of poverty. If were concern with poverty, we wouldn't see a concerted effort to direct the party toward a focus on the those whose incomes far exceed the national mean. People who earn $100-200k a year may pretend they are poor, but where I come from that's fucking rich. Millionaires and near millionaires may respond favorably to their inclusion in the "working class" while low to median wage workers are rhetorically excluded from it, but such overtures do nothing to address poverty.

A concern for poverty would mean respecting the votes of the poor, listening rather than insulting them as "establishment" and "corporatist." It would mean inviting their participation in the political process rather than working to disenfranchise them by speaking caucuses.

Besides, you yourself said the poor weren't the priority. You insisting that addressing inequality in K-12 that cements generations of poverty wasn't nearly as important as guaranteeing "free" college to students to wealthy to qualify for financial aid. That's not about addressing poverty. It's about concentrating wealth and opportunity in the upper 15%.

Addressing poverty would mean that the people who earn in the hundreds of thousands would be willing to sacrifice some of their own comforts for those who can't mange the basics. But of course we see the opposite of that. We see the poor and people of color dismissed as "establishment" (literally, AA as an entire race), while progressive is reserved to those who enjoy far greater privilege.

This is part of the language of obfuscation, a class project that falsely presents wealth and privilege as poverty, while targeting the poor and marginalized for further exclusion. And as we observe in the case of Kamala Harris and before her Tom Perez, obfuscation and is a central tactic in power plays on the behalf of self-entitled minority.

After years of hearing the same words, with absolutely no willingness to listen to the concerns of the poor and marginalized, it's become clear that they are invoked as rhetorical justification for a very different class project. I remember being told by one "progressive" that food stamps at their current level was an adequate response to poverty. Food stamps, something the most conservative Democrats vote for.
That isn't about ending poverty. It isn't about addressing inequality. It's throwing a few crumbs to the poor to keep them poor while government focuses on the middle to upper-middle class.

It's also worth nothing that the Club for Growth and other RW outfits have likewise adopted the language of anti-corporatism. We see no qualms about using leftist language to advance deeply reactionary goals.

I don't know much about Harris's record or background, and if she runs I will inform myself. But I do know that the people who are attacking her have already proven their lack of concern for poverty and equality beyond any shadow of doubt. That they continue to use words like poverty and equality while repeatedly arguing against policies that would address those problem betray goals very different from what they pretend.