Is Kamala Harris’s Democratic Party Big Enough for Both Bernie Sanders and Ken Chenault?

Plus, bookstore “canceled the event because I was a Zionist”; what the NYTimes won’t tell you about a Trump event

“Growing the economic pie”: Harvard Corporation and Berkshire Hathaway board member Ken Chenault speaks at the Democratic National Convention.

Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders—sandwiched between Senator Schumer, Governor J.B. Pritzker, and Douglas Emhoff on what seemed like “Jewish men” night of the Democratic National Convention—denounced the “billionaire class,” said we “need to get big money out of our political process,” and called for expanding drug price controls to “cut our prescription drug prices in half.”

Then a member of the Harvard Corporation, former American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault, got up to assert that Harris is “both pro-business and pro-worker.”

“She knows that a market-based America needs a strong and effective government,” Chenault said. “Kamala Harris believes in growing the economic pie.”

Chenault didn’t mention Trump by name, instead referring to “Kamala Harris’s opponent.”

“He does not believe in our democratic values,” Chenault said. I guess he could have been stating the obvious, that Trump is a Republican and thus does not believe in Democratic values, but it seemed pretty clear that he was actually accusing the Republican nominee of being hostile to lowercase-d democratic values. That has been a key line of attack by Democrats against Trump, even as the Democrats swapped their democratically elected nominee, Joe Biden, out for one, Kamala Harris, who didn’t get many votes when she ran for president in 2020.

Chenault called on voters to “repudiate the merchants of fear.” When he stopped speaking, the Democratic convention feed segued to a video warning that if Trump is elected people are going to lose their health insurance. Talk about merchants of fear.

Sanders also assailed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, saying that elections, “including primary elections,” should not be decided by billionaires. That got a cheer from the DNC crowd, though voters in Democratic primaries had democratically decided to dump anti-Israel far-left extremists Rep. Cori Bush and Rep. Jamaal Bowman for more mainstream and sensible candidates.

There’s a lot of policy distance between Bernie Sanders, who is a self-described socialist, and Ken Chenault, who took over from Harvey Golub at American Express and who serves not only on the Harvard Corporation but also on the boards of Berkshire Hathaway and Airbnb. If Harris gets elected, or even if she sits for an interview before the election with a reasonably competent journalist, she’s going to be forced to choose between the economic visions of Sanders socialism and pro-growth, pro-business Chenault capitalism.

The Democrats, by showcasing Sanders and Chenault, are trying to tell the socialist voters she is for them and the capitalist voters she also is for them. That could be a lie. If it’s true, it could be a sign of a politician so vague and eager to please that she lacks any core principles or beliefs, or of one so inexperienced that she hasn’t really yet thought things through. Harris would probably prefer to avoid having to choose between Sanders and Chenault. But to govern is to choose.