The Hillary Clinton loyalists from the 2016 presidential election are already defending Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), a likely Democratic presidential candidate who has come under criticism for her handling of the One West Financial foreclosure case when she was California’s top prosecutor.
Oh, and they’re trying to run progressives out of the Democratic Party as well:
I’ll be the first one to admit that Kamala isn’t my last preference in the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination race, as there are potential Democratic presidential candidates who I have a less favorable opinion of than my opinion of Kamala, such as Andrew Cuomo, Rahm Emanuel, Bob Iger, and Cory Booker. However, she’s not my first preference for the Democratic presidential nomination, and, as I mentioned earlier in the blog post, she helped a bank once run by a Trump crony avoid legal action:
There are reasons for the suspicions about Harris’s fealty to big financial interests. Despite opposing the nomination of treasury secretary and former Wall Street titan Steve Mnuchin, in a previous life as California attorney general, Harris was criticized for essentially letting Mnuchin’s bank off the hook during the foreclosure crisis.
In 2013, prosecutors in her office drafted a memo that claimed they had “uncovered evidence suggestive of widespread misconduct” at Mnuchin’s OneWest Bank. According to the Intercept’s David Dayen, who first reported the memo, those prosecutors recommended Harris file a civil enforcement action against the bank. Instead, Harris did nothing. Later, it was revealed that Harris was the only 2016 Democratic senate candidate to receive a donation from Mnuchin.
After decades of Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama doing more to placate Wall Street and corporate special interests than fight for progressive ideals (remember the Glass-Steagall repeal and the auto industry bailout?), no wonder why a lot of people are tired of the political donor and consultant class controlling the Democratic Party and are adopting very progressive views on a wide range of issues. If that makes people like me alt-left, so be it. I’m a loyal Democrat who has regularly voted for Democrats that I’m not 100% fond of, because the GOP is absolutely awful, with or without Trump. However, I strongly believe that the Democratic Party should unquestionably support reproductive rights, workers’ rights, voting rights, human rights, good government, non-interventionist foreign policy, war only as a last resort, national sovereignty, protecting the social safety net, and reducing economic inequality of all forms. As a certain country music song goes, “you’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything”.
The alt-left movement is more than a few random people, and it’s not a completely unified movement. As a matter of fact, I’m strongly opposed to the Putin regime in Russia, particularly because of their meddling in our nation’s most recent presidential election, although many who are typically described as alt-left, sadly, will do anything to apologize for the Putin regime.
We are the alt-left, and we’re here and ready to transform the Democratic Party into a truly progressive party that fights for progressive ideals designed to lift up Americans of all backgrounds!