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
Episode 2301: Nicholas Carr on how the Arc of Innovation Bends Towards Decadence
Episode 2300: Sandra Matz makes the Case for a Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior
Episode 2299: Jill Kastner explains why everything old is new again in international politics
Episode 2298: Adam Chandler on the fatal contradiction at the heart of American capitalism
Episode 2297: Louis Ferrante on why the Mafia Killed JFK
Episode 2296: Adi Jaffe on how to free yourself from addiction forever
Episode 2295: Paula Whyman on how to save the American environment - one wild mountaintop at a time
Episode 2294: Larry Downes' non-MAGA plan to shrink the Federal bureaucracy
Episode 2293: David Masciotra on why Kamala Harris should have gone on the Joe Rogan show
Episode 2292: Chris Schroeder on how America now swims in an ocean of black swans
Episode 2291: Michael Scott-Baumann on the hopelessness of the Palestinian situation
Episode 2290: Marshall Poe on why 2024 was a bad year for most podcasters
Episode 2289: Gary Marcus on how Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is, in the long run, inevitable