A Democrat consultant who raised millions for the party has warned that it has betrayed its roots to become a lobbyists’ plaything in thrall to celebrity supporters.
Evan Barker has campaigned for the party since high school and was ‘thrilled’ to attend the DNC in Chicago where Kamala Harris was crowned as the party’s presidential candidate.
But once there she realized the stranglehold that liberal billionaires now have over policy platforms – at the expense of the working people it is supposed to represent.
And the party has not heeded the lessons of its stuttering support in the polls, with VP pick Tim Walz posing last week next to the son of billionaire progressive George Soros whose DA’s have wreaked such havoc with the party’s brand and people’s lives.
‘Is this how you convince people you’re the party of the people?’ she demanded. ‘By posing with a billionaire nepo baby while Americans struggle to pay for groceries?’
‘Far from progressive, these Soros-backed DAs did more to hurt progressives than anything the Right has managed.
Lifelong Democrat activist Evan Barker said she was ‘thrilled’ to attend the DNC in Chicago, before being ‘devastated’ at seeing the party’s operation at close quarters
She said that the picture of Dem VP pic Tim Walz paying court at the Manhattan mansion of George Soros’s ‘nepo-baby’ son Alexander illustrates how tone deaf the party has become
‘To everyday Americans, the term ‘progressive’, now conjures up images of fentanyl overdoses, crime, defecation in the streets, and riots,’ she told Newsweek.
Barker was appalled when the defenestration of Joe Biden went unchallenged at the DNC and points to the influence of billionaire donor Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, who is one of Harris’s closest friends.
She spent some of her millions circulating negative polling data about Biden to other mega-donors and sat in Harris’s exclusive box at the convention as her protégé enjoyed her coronation.
‘Now that the Kool-Aid from the DNC is wearing off, people are waking up to the realities of an untested candidate,’ Barker wrote.
‘Harris is barely beating Biden in key swing state polls, dodges questions from the press, and continually gaffes answers on significant policy issues. She can barely answer basic questions about her plans for regular people in friendly encounters with people like Oprah.
‘This is what happens when a candidate is anointed by donors and not selected by voters.’
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is on course to spend upwards of $100 million getting his favored candidate elected but is expected to demand the head of FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan in return, claiming she it at ‘war with American business’.
Barker described Khan as ‘one of the only lifelines for working people in the modern Democratic machine’, hailing her work in blocking grocery giant mergers which would have cost jobs and hiked prices.
Harris won a slew of celebrity endorsements at the DNC including from chat show host Oprah Winfrey who hosted a ‘Unite for America’ livestream rally
The event saw dozens of Hollywood A-listers pledge their support for the party’s new pick
Barker pointed to the outsize influence of billionaire donors including Steve Jobs’ widow Laurene Powell Jobs in securing the nomination for her Democrat protégé
She stood up for workers’ rights by banning non-compete agreements and led efforts to block major mergers of grocery stores like the Kroger-Albertsons, which would have resulted in higher food prices and hurt union workers.
‘If Hoffman is successful in his public campaign to replace Khan, he will further cement the Democrats as the party of the wealthy, the powerful, and corporate elite,’ she said.
‘Democrats love to decry money in politics when it comes to the Koch brothers or Elon Musk, but the billionaires who support Democrats are given a total pass and have a huge influence over policy.’
Barker hails from a working-class family in Kansas where she lived through a childhood of ‘intense pressure on my family’s finances’.
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman
‘Many of my family members are proud construction workers and lifelong union members. I grew up believing that the Democrats were our party,’ she says.
But the party’s vulnerability to sectional interests which prioritize identity over income has alienated her family and threatens to shatter its bedrock support.
She singled out the prolific San Francisco donor and influencer Steve Phillips, author of books including ‘Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority’, and ‘How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good’.
‘It’s becoming increasingly clear that the real divide is the one separating the college educated from the working class of all races,’ she wrote.
‘But Phillips and others like him continue to focus exclusively on race—and you can see the direct impact this has on Democratic politicians, who talk much more about things like ‘equity’ than they do about the class divide.
‘It’s out of touch with the pulse of the country and deeply alienating to working-class voters who were once stalwart Democrats.’
Barker said her optimism about the DNC was replaced by a ‘sinking feeling’ once she arrived and began seeing the party leaders at work.
‘I felt submersed in a hollow chamber whose mottos were ‘Brat summer’ and ‘Joy’ – totally out of touch with regular, every-day Americans and their pressing needs,’ she reflected.
‘Instead, the most elite people in the world chanted in unison that ‘We’re not going back’.’
And no event exemplified its detachment from reality more than the euphoric ‘Unite for America’ livestream rally which saw Oprah Winfrey take center stage as Hollywood royalty beam in their messages of support.
Celebrities like Bryan Cranston, Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, Jennifer Lopez, Tracee Ellis Ross, Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep dominated a giant screen at the event as Winfrey and Harris exchanged platitudes in front of a handpicked audience.
‘I felt submersed in a hollow chamber whose mottos were ‘Brat summer’ and ‘Joy’ – totally out of touch with regular, every-day Americans and their pressing needs,’ she reflected.
‘I want to see the Democratic Party talk about what they’re going to do for my grandmother, not just have a bunch of celebrities fly in and tell us all to be joyful and optimistic’ she added
‘They’re just telling us basically that all we need to have is optimism and joy, and that’s going to fix our lives,’ Barker told Fox News.
‘And I’m just tired of it. I’m completely fed up.
‘My grandmother, she lives in Missouri. She voted for Obama twice. She’s voted for Trump the last couple of times
‘Things have gotten so outrageously expensive, it is so difficult for her.
‘I want to see the Democratic Party talk about what they’re going to do for my grandmother, not just have a bunch of celebrities fly in and tell us all to be joyful and optimistic. It’s cringy. It’s embarrassing.’
But grandmothers in Kansas are not at the forefront of the party’s thoughts anymore, she claims.
‘The Democrats know that Reid Hoffman and Laurene Powell Jobs do not have the best interests of regular Americans at heart—but they will continue to cower to them anyway.
‘Forget ‘Kamala is Brat’ or the ‘Joy!’ campaign.
‘The image of Soros with Walz perfectly encapsulates the Democrats’ real vibe these days—the unfettered influence the donors have over this party and the lives they’ve destroyed in the process.’