This theme belongs to the Far Left. The study tagged 165 quotes to it, from 25 voices across 37 videos. Among quotes with a known political leaning, 53% came from Far Left voices, and Real Progressives contributed more than any other channel. The Far Right added 17%, mostly from the NJ Libertarian Party and Fox News, while Right voices contributed none.
The charge is that Democrats can’t run as economic populists because their donors won’t allow it. The Young Turks pointed to a Third Way report that urged the party to pay less attention to small-dollar donors. MSNBC cited a New York Times headline from mid-October about how Wall Street was “subtly shaping” the Harris economic agenda. Bernie Sanders’ post-election line, that a party which abandons the working class should expect the working class to abandon it, is quoted repeatedly across the study.
A small number of channels carry most of this argument, as the chart shows. Real Progressives, The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart and Scott Carney are the most frequent voices.
Populism and the donor base
The critics’ case runs like this. Voters can tell when a candidate’s economic message is limited by who pays for the campaign, so populist language from Democrats sounds unconvincing even when the policies behind it are real. To these commentators, the Harris campaign’s outreach to business executives confirmed the problem.
The study records the argument without settling whether it is true. What the data shows is that it comes mainly from the left edge of the spectrum and from a handful of channels that return to it again and again. Left and Center voices together contribute fewer than a third of the quotes.
Take a look at this New York Times headline from mid-October: 'How Wall Street is subtly shaping the Harris economic agenda.' The Vice President has repeatedly incorporated suggestions from business executives into her economic agenda. After the election, Harris had a Wall Street-approved economic pitch. It fell flat.
MSNBCIf you look at what Third Way put in their report — they went out there and advocated against grassroots funding of campaigns. They said we need to listen less to those donors that give two and three dollars a year. So what does that mean? That sounds to me like they want to listen more to the people that give two and three million a year. That's a losing strategy.
The Young TurksYou've had Bernie Sanders come out and say, why are we surprised that the working class abandoned us when we've abandoned the working class? You have other people saying, no, no, that's the wrong diagnosis, that's not been the problem.
The American Idea Podcast
