There was a lot that was intriguing about the high-end rollout of Senator Kamala Harris's presidential campaign on Sunday. The announcement rally itself seemed to shut down most of Oakland. Harris's speech, which has been slightly overpraised, but which was quite solid and occasionally soaring in its quasi-Obama-ish way, had a lot in it to fascinate the casual observer.

For example, the biggest knock against Harris so far is based in her career as a prosecutor, during which she took some stands and actions that run contrary to the post-Ferguson mood among liberal activists. Hence, she's on a unique tightrope that her primary rivals— with the possible exception of Joe Biden, who has other problems, too—don't have to walk. She gave an extended look at the techniques she will try to use to keep from falling.

It was just a couple blocks from this very spot that nearly 30 years ago as a young district attorney I walked into the courtroom for the very first time and said the five words that would guide my life’s work: “Kamala Harris, for the people.” Now, I knew our criminal justice system was deeply flawed. But I also knew the profound impact law enforcement has on people’s lives, and it's responsibility to give them safety and dignity. I knew I wanted to protect people.



And I knew that the people in our society who are most often targeted by predators are also most often the voiceless and vulnerable. And I believed then as I do now, that no one should be left to fight alone. You see, in our system of justice, we believe that a harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us. That’s why when we file a case, it’s not filed in the name of the victim. It reads, “The People.”



This is a point I have often explained to console and counsel survivors of crime, people who faced great harm. Often at the hands of someone they trust—be it a relative or a bank or a big corporation. I would remind them. You are not invisible. We all stand together. That’s the power of the people.

Senator Kamala Harris speaks to supporters in Oakland during her presidential campaign kick-off event on January 27. Mason Trinca Getty Images

OK, it's a riff, but it's also the only one available to Harris, unless she plans to renounce everything she did in public life prior to being elected to the Senate. (Her record on financial crimes, particularly those touching on Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's company, is decidedly mixed, as David Dayen has been pointing out.) But the most interesting passage in the speech came when she turned the issue of national unity on its head and recast it as an easy and narcotic defense of an indefensible status quo.

And I want to be perfectly clear: I'm not talking about unity for the sake of unity. Hear me out. I'm not talking about unity for the sake of unity. I'm not talking about some façade of unity. And I believe we must acknowledge that the word unity has often been used to shut people up or to preserve the status quo. After all let’s remember: when women fought for suffrage, those in power said they were dividing the sexes and disturbing the peace. Let’s remember: when abolitionists spoke out and civil rights workers marched, their oppressors said they were dividing the races and violating the word of God. But Frederick Douglass said it best and Harriet Tubman and Dr. King knew. To love the religion of Jesus is to hate the religion of the slave master. When we have true unity, no one will be subjugated for others. It’s about fighting for a country with equal treatment, collective purpose and freedom for all. That’s who we are.

This was next-stage Obama. True, there is more that unites us than divides us, but papering over the divisions with a call for "unity" is to sacrifice equality for an anesthetic kind of peace.

Which brings us, coincidentally, to the current musings of former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who's been pondering a run for president as a "centrist independent," God help us all. All of the progressive ideas that have been gaining public support over the past two years are anathema to him, which is why a lot of the Never Trumpers are Howard-curious. Steve Schmidt is already onboard. (I've tried to warn y'all about this.) But the towering, blistering arrogance of Schultz's vanity exercise is precisely what the country does not need in its two-year effort to wrest the wheel from El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago. From The New York Times:

Asked if he would consider changing his mind and run as a Democrat, he said, “I feel if I ran as a Democrat I would have to be disingenuous and say things that I don’t believe because the party has shifted so far to the left.”



“When I hear people espousing free government-paid college, free government-paid health care and a free government job for everyone—on top of a $21 trillion debt—the question is, how are we paying for all this and not bankrupting the country?” Mr. Schultz said. “It’s as big of a false narrative as the wall,” he added. “Doesn’t someone have to speak the truth about what we can afford while maintaining a deep level of compassion and empathy for the American people?”

Leave aside for the moment that the country is not exactly hungering for another inexperienced plutocrat and that, if we have any sense at all, the current president* has murdered all that Let's-Run-Government-Like-A Business bilge forever, we are seeing the stirrings of a genuine progressive moment for the first time in over 50 years.

Howard Schultz speaks to Starbucks shareholders in 2016. Stephen Brashear Getty Images

The idea that the times now cry out for deficit-hawkery married to MBA-worship is not a little horrifying. But it's a quite predictable reaction to the current political moment. As you can see by the hysterical reaction to Senator Professor Warren's proposed wealth-tax, and to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's proposal to bring back the Bolshevism of John F. Kennedy's tax plans, the masters of the universe are running scared for the first time in a long while. This is a good thing. God knows they need the exercise.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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