California’s Kamala Harris has brought her state’s lobbying, advisors, money and political priorities to the upper echelons of the Democratic Party.
Her newly announced top aides include California Tony West“He has served as a key liaison to business leaders and major donors, according to people with knowledge of his role,” said her brother-in-law, a top lawyer for the ride-hailing company Uber. The New York Times report.
California tech investors are backing Harris because she’s “intimately familiar with the needs of the tech industry,” he said. He is a technology investor and a director of Microsoft.
The rise of California interest groups in Democratic politics is a PR problem for a party that positions itself as the defender of interest groups. Economic equality and middle-class families.
California’s wealthy investor economy and Low-wage immigrants teeth Squeeze California Once the envy of Middle classCalifornia’s economic disparities taller than than states like Arkansas and Mississippi.
For example, California home prices are inflated by elite support for legal and illegal immigration: “In an apples-to-apples comparison, a median home in the 35th to 65th percentile of home values costs more than twice as much in California as in the rest of the U.S. — $784,000 compared with the national average of $354,000,” Capital & Main says. report It was announced in July. “This equates to an average monthly payment of about $6,000 that will strain the budget for Californians.”
“Everyone is feeling the strain of the rising cost of living, even the wealthy,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, a longtime county supervisor and city councilman. Said of Los Angeles Times In April, “fewer than a quarter of renters think they will be able to afford to live in their rental property in the future.” Buy a house “Anywhere in Los Angeles they want to live,” the paper reported.
Harris grew up in one of Canada’s wealthiest areas, but moved to California to begin her political career as a black politician. She was elected San Francisco District Attorney in 2003, California Attorney General in 2010 and US Senator in 2016, winning a wide following and donors in California.
Harris’ new aides include David Plouff, who runs Mark Zuckerberg’s pro-immigration lobbying group FWD.us. Plouff was born in Delaware but was recruited by the California-based Zuckerberg-Chan Initiative as a political expert in 2017. In 2020, he combined his expertise with Zuckerberg’s money to help Democratic candidates win the 2020 election.
Future immigration increases will boost America’s competitive advantage https://t.co/ugR16wfTEw pic.twitter.com/VJeJGGL8Lk
— FWD.us (@FWDus) August 1, 2024
Her top pollster David BinderSan Francisco-based Californian Brian Nelson He also serves as chief policy officer to Harris, who does not post economic policy information on her website.
The Democratic takeover of California has ousted many of President Joe Biden’s East Coast lawmakers, including Tom Donilon and Anita Dunn, whose political roots lie in labor unions, government agencies and anti-poverty programs.
Hoffman described the hopes of California investors: The New York Times article
No matter who is president in 2025, AI, robotics, self-driving cars, genetic engineering, blockchain, decentralized finance, advanced manufacturing, and other key innovation industries will play an even larger role than they do today in generating economic prosperity and ensuring global competitiveness…. What we need now are leaders who recognize that innovation is the key to breakthroughs on economic prosperity, national security, climate change, and other pressing challenges.
Notably, the op-ed makes no mention of the tech industry’s support for the “extractive immigration” economic policies that Harris has championed during the Biden administration, which use government to inflate the industry’s consumer economy with imported consumers, renters and workers.
Hoffman’s article also makes no mention of the goal of making Americans more productive, which would lead to higher wages and greater prosperity for ordinary Americans — a productivity-boosting option promoted by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.
The article does mention international trade, which allows Americans to sell more products to foreigners, but only to complain about President Donald Trump pressuring foreign governments to give more opportunities to American manufacturers and farmers.
Hoffman’s op-ed predicts that taxpayer money will continue to flow to investor projects, despite Harris’ lack of a policy platform.
Vice President Harris has set the vision for how to best lead the United States during this time, and she has the opportunity to pass the torch from President Biden in a clearly pro-innovation direction. Rather than governing by tweet, Biden has passed bipartisan legislation such as the Contract with Inflation Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which have authorized hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for new manufacturing construction and investment.
The op-ed was published as Americans watched a resurrected video in which Harris portrayed the so-called cloud database as if it were floating in the sky.
Kamala Harris explains cloud storage.
This is not satire.pic.twitter.com/BmscfvC1b2
— Paul A. Cipra 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) August 3, 2024
In contrast, Hoffman slammed President Donald Trump, complaining about the “turmoil that has characterized his tenure as a presidential candidate, president, former president and now presidential candidate again.”
“Trump has spent much of his time as president interfering in the business of an iconic American company. He has alleged that Amazon is dodging taxes and antitrust laws and has regularly appeared to threaten Amazon,” Hoffman complained.
Under Trump, California tech titans complained that tariffs meant to support U.S. manufacturers hampered their ability to digitize products and services overseas and restricted immigration of cheap labor, causing stock prices of Fortune 500 companies to fall by $100 billion.
Some investors are backing Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, who has worked in Silicon Valley’s investment sector. Trump’s supporters include Elon Musk, whose X social media company would benefit from Trump’s perceived support for free speech.
But Hoffman’s op-ed reflects a shift by most West Coast investors to support Harris, who is expected to fund Silicon Valley priorities with taxpayer dollars and increased immigration. For example, hundreds of people in the California-based venture capital sector have backed groups such as:Kamala VC“To boost the Harris campaign:
We work every day to find, invest in, and support the entrepreneurs who are shaping the future. We support business, the American Dream, entrepreneurship, and technological advancement. We can solve it [political issues] Through constructive dialogue with political leaders and institutions that are willing to talk to us.
Harris’ elite-backed campaign has also drawn support from wealthy investors in New York, Florida and other affluent districts. “I’ve talked to Tony,” he said. [West] “The people on their team are very smart and open to all kinds of business ideas,” billionaire investor Mark Cuban said.
