Episode 2235: John Driscoll on why Kamala Harris lost
I did this interview with John Driscoll, co-author of Pay the People! Why Fair Pay is Good for Business and Great for America, earlier this week, assuming that Harris would lose the election. And let’s be clear: she did lose an election that should have been eminently winnable. Driscoll spelt it out clearly in a powerful The Hill article last week about how raising the minimum wage is the key to the White House for Harris. The problem with Harris, and most of the Democratic party, is their failure to offer a coherent and politically sellable economic alternative to Trumpism. John Driscoll and his group of successful business leaders at Patriotic Millionaires offer that alternative. It’s not socialism, but it is an undisguised and unapologetic attempt to recognize the economic predicament of the American working class and to resurrect the American Dream by leveling the playing field. That’s the way to defeat Trumpism. Not by smiling inanely and saying nothing.
John Driscoll chairs the Waystar Corporation and is a senior advisor at Walgreens Boots Alliance. Previously, he was CEO at CareCentrix, president of Castlight, group president at Medco, and SVP at Oxford Health Plans. John also served as a captain in the U.S. Army Reserve and is a longtime board member of the Alliance for Hunger and The Patriotic Millionaires. The co-author, with Morris Pearl, of Pay the People! (The New Press), he lives in Stamford, Connecticut.
Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.
Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Neal Wooten on Life Growing Up on a Pig Farm in the Alabama Mountains: Nasty, Brutish, and Short
Bill McGuire on Hothouse Earth: Why We've Only Got 90 Months Left to Save the Planet
That Was the Week in Tech: Why Substack Is a Bust, How Apple Can't Do AI, and Why China Is Thrashing the U.S. in Clean Tech Innovation
Solito: Javier Zamora's Memoir of His Unaccompanied Migration From El Salvador to California at the Age of Nine
Richard Winters, MD: Should Good "Leaders" Get Rid of the Idea of Leadership Itself?
J. Bradford DeLong on Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Wealthy and Miserable 20th Century
Patricia A. Turner: What Can We Learn from Anti-Obama Trash Talk to Confront Racism in 21st-Century American Politics
Sterling Hawkins: Why "Discomfort" Might Be the Key To Not Just a Meaningful Life But Also a Happy Death
Bill George: Shut Up, Elon! Why Business Leaders Need to Get Off Social Media and Keep Their Views To Themselves
W. David Marx: Does Our Desire for Social Rank Determine Taste, Identity, Art, and Fashion?
Evan Puschak: On Public Benches, Superman, Blade Runner, and Other Stuff That Gives Life Meaning
Tim Higgins on the Tesla Story: Is Elon Musk the Hero, The Villain, or Just an Accidental Footnote to the Company's Remarkable Engineers and Workers?
Mansi Choksi on An Alternative Passage to India: Rebelling Against Conventional Love, Marriage, and Sexuality in Modi's India