corporations want a politics based on 'racial exclusion'? what i see from that sector are gooey paeans to black lives matter, which doesn't necessarily indicate what they want (more like what they're willing to tolerate).
— Peter Hart (@peterfhart) August 14, 2020
Justifiably, Lee Fang doesn't like a politics based on racial exclusion, all too evident in the exuberant response to Joe Biden's choice of Senator Kamala Harris as a running mate. It was an "historic choice," raved corporations, cultural elites, media, and the highly educated.
It may also have pleased Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who was CEO of OneWest Bank when the Attorney General's office found "widespread misconduct." During his tenure from 2009 to 2015, The Intercept has reported, there were "over a thousand violations of foreclosure laws" but the investigation was closed "after Attorney General "Harris' office declined to file a civil enforcement action against the bank." (She hasn't been able and willing to give a reasonable explanation.)
With the possible exception of Susan Bass, none- including Stacey Abrams- of the several black women considered by Biden for vice-president has a particularly progressive record. That is probably not a coincidence as it reflects the rank-and-file of the black voter, who will be focused more on social injustice, especially racial discrimination, than on the stranglehold imposed by powerful corporations upon the economic structure of the nation.
It's not only corporations, cultural elites, media, and the highly education- it is also, in general, the black community. Senator Sanders had the upper hand in the fight for the presidential nomination until the primary in which a majority of Democratic voters was African-American. Biden won big- and convincingly to primary voters on Super Tuesday, who saw Biden as the choice of the party's base.
That is not opinion or a value judgement; it is observation. One of the objectives of the progressive left is to forge an alliance of blacks and whites, especially among the poor and the working class. That is a daunting project, especially because politics based on racial exclusion is preferred not only by the groups cited by Fang, but also by blacks. ("Minority/of color/diverse" is not synonymous with devotion to economic fairness, as Fang understands.) It's a hard truth for those of us who believe in "fundamental human economic rights," yet a truth nonetheless.
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