Revolving Door Project | Combatting Corporate Influence Is How Kamala Can Win

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With Kamala Harris’ recent ascension as the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump now has a new rival to contend with. Luckily for Harris, her willingness to go after exploitative corporations creates a powerful contrast between her and the former president—a contrast Democrats must lean into should they hope to win over voters come election season this fall.

As my colleagues Andrea Beaty, Hannah Story Brown, and Emma Marsano explained in last week’s newsletter, the Harris Campaign’s effectiveness hinges on its ability to capitalize on widespread populist discontent with a message that “can position her as standing against the forces of corporate greed that keep rent and prices high while working to thwart climate progress and labor power alike.”

The differences between Trump and Harris on environmental policy provide an instructive example of how such messaging could play out.

Trump entered the 2016 presidential race having already declared climate change a “hoax” and brought that same denialist mindset into the executive office. He appointed inexperienced and/or industry-tied individuals like Scott Pruitt, Andrew Wheeler, Ryan Zinke, and David Bernhardt to run the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Interior, respectively, while simultaneously pursuing steep funding cuts to these same agencies to further hinder their effectiveness. In just four years, the Trump administration rolled back (if not totally removed) over 100 regulatory provisions that safeguarded against pollution of the air, water, and atmosphere. The result of such an approach to environmental policy was obvious: further damage to the environment and public health alike. But that didn’t stop Trump from attempting to suppress research that contradicted his own hostility to climate science.

As the current Republican nominee for president, Trump is offering more of the same: reversing the progress of his predecessors in order to gut environmental regulations and empower polluting industries. If there is any difference, it’s that this time around he’s been even more brazen about how such an agenda would be in service of billionaire oil and gas donors.

Contrast that with Harris, whose six-year tenure (from 2011-2017) as Attorney General of California included criminal indictments against a Houston, Texas-headquartered pipeline operator, an investigation into ExxonMobil, and a $14 million settlement with BP subsidiaries. All in 2016 alone.

With that in mind, the Harris Campaign could make a powerful argument for what’s at stake for the environment in this year’s election. “What the Republican Party is offering in Donald Trump is a faux-populist surrogate of Big Oil,” she could say. “A Harris administration, however, could present an alternative vision for climate policy—a world where the president remains committed to holding corporate polluters accountable.”

Picking such a fight would obviously have its trade-offs, of course. Harris’ position places her at odds with the deep-pocketed fossil fuel industry. But whatever respect she loses with corporate backers is made up for in support from a growing contingent of climate conscious voters. Besides, if you had to choose your preferred enemy, those responsible for increasingly unbearable summers (and the devastating wildfires that come with them) are as good as any.

Drawing clear distinctions between herself and Trump along these lines—public champion vs. corporate crook—isn’t a totally foreign concept to the Harris Campaign. Take this post from 2019 for example:

It’s no surprise why such a message has found its second wind on social media in recent weeks. In characterizing Donald Trump as the personification of corporate malfeasance, Harris’ history of governance becomes that much more in line with the populist political environment. We at the Revolving Door Project have long argued that Harris’ background uniquely positioned her to take advantage of such a messaging strategy as Vice President. Her newly assumed position at the top of the Democratic ticket now means that a corporate crackdown communication style stands to have an even greater effect.

But simply picking rhetorical fights is not enough. If Harris truly wants to make her candidacy salient with voters, she must continue to back up her combative messaging with actions that reaffirm a commitment to public benefit over private interests. Another area where she can easily do so is with regards to antitrust policy.

As David Dayen recently wrote, the business interests responsible for saddling grade-schoolers with school lunch debt, stifling worker autonomy, and raising grocery store prices have been clamoring to make their influence on the Harris Campaign felt. Billionaire donors like Reid Hoffman (most notably, though many in this cohort of influence-peddlers prefer to remain anonymous) have explicitly called on Harris to break with President Biden’s approach to corporate power and fire Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan.

Such a request, as Dayen points out, is ridiculous considering how core Khan’s leadership (along with her colleagues like Rohit Chopra and Jonathan Kanter at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and Antitrust Division, respectively) has been in racking up wins for Biden and Harris’ own administration. That Harris would suddenly dilute her (increasingly popular) vision of the country’s future on behalf of a few business leaders is wishful thinking at best—and attempted bribery at worst. Regardless, Harris could make an example of the hubris of the ultra-wealthy by clearly and loudly refusing to entertain their offer. It would be yet another way to distinguish herself from the venality that has come to define the Trump Campaign.

The window opened by Biden dropping out offers Democrats a chance to rethink their electoral approach. An approach that, as my colleague Max Moran described in The American Prospect, involved downplaying the current administration’s populist strengths on hoping of winning over big business. In choosing to openly align itself with capital, Republicans have offered the Democrats the opportunity to more easily win voters over by appealing to their interests. If the Harris Campaign, and Democrats more generally, are serious about improving their electoral outcomes this fall, they should take care to highlight this contrast.

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