Op-Ed: Howard Schultz Versus Obama, Congress and Democracy

The recent debt ceiling crisis made many of us take a hard look at the ways our government and political system function (or, more often than not, fail to function). Starbucks CEO and Seattle aristocrat Howard Schultz is no exception.

When an average person gets fed up with the government's conduct, they write a letter to their Congressman, or attend a town hall meeting. Maybe they complain in the comments section of a news site. When a person with a net worth of over $1 billion gets fed up, they are instantly taken seriously by the political class, and able to bend the ears of Presidents, pundits and Congressmen, however half-baked their ideas. And so, almost overnight, Howard Schultz has become the cranky billionaire du jour in DC, with all the attendant attention from politicians and journalists.

The political world can be a perplexing place for a newcomer, and in the short few weeks that Howard Schultz has been involved, he has shown himself to be utterly adrift as a political activist.

During the debt ceiling crisis, the newly ascendant ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party held the nation's ability to borrow hostage to demands for spending cuts with no accompanying tax cuts. When it began to look like a deal wouldn't be reached, and the terrible consequences of the nation not being able to meet its financial priorities loomed large, Howard Schultz stepped in with what he believed was a solution. The coffee mogul proposed that he and other frequent donors to political campaigns pledge to boycott donations to incumbents until a deal was reached.

A compromise of sorts was reached, but Schultz wasn't satisfied with it, so he's moving forward with the boycott anyway. Apparently, this is a solution too elegant to be deterred by the lack of any antecedent problem. Earlier this week, he expanded his criticisms, saying he was "shocked" that politicians hadn't embraced his plan, and criticizing President Obama and other leaders for taking vacations during a "crisis." With campaign spending at an all-time high, what politician would embrace a plan that could deprive electoral war-chests of tens of millions of dollars? In the midst of three wars, a depressed economy, mounting debt, and vicious political infighting in DC, when is the government not in some kind of crisis? Would any of these problems be alleviated if President Obama camped out in the Oval Office for the rest of his term? In what way is asking politicians to adopt policies you support, then dangling a large amount of money over them not corrupt?

Although Howard Schultz has long supported the Democratic Party, his boycott scheme has DC Democrats worried, and Republicans licking their chops. Both parties rely on a loyal stable of wealthy donors to bankroll their astronomically expensive campaigns. You don't need a PhD in political science to guess that the Rolodex of a college-educated Seattleite who made his fortune in lattes is probably crammed with Democratic donors, and sparse on Koch brothers. If Schultz's boycott campaign only reaches out to his friends and allies in the pro-Democratic camp and convinces some of them to join his boycott, the ensuing donations gap could be a fatal blow to Democratic chances of defending the White House and Senate. Ironically, a Republican sweep would empower the ultra-conservative Tea Party wing of the party- the people whose intransigence on the debt ceiling supposedly spurred Schultz to action.

The debt ceiling crisis was nothing compared with the long-term problems caused by the supreme influence of money over our political system. Schultz's solution would address that small crisis by contributing to the much greater long-term problem and would set the precedent that anyone with a billion dollars can "convince" Congress to play along with their pet theories. While troubling, it shouldn't be news to anyone that donors are able to influence politicians, but never before have we seen one of these moguls so openly and shamelessly flaunt the fact he is more powerful than an average citizen. Schultz's public comments give the impression that he's completely unaware that there could be anything untoward about a campaign to publicly bribe Congress.

None of the media outlets who've published his demands have cared to comment on their broader implications, in fact, most have applauded him for corrupting Congress towards a good cause.

During an interview Wednesday, Schultz said that his plan was supported by "working people" who "don't have a voice." Lamenting working-class people's alienation from politics while conducting an interview on how you plan to use millions of dollars to control Congress takes an awe-inspiring lack of self-awareness.

Those "working people" don't need some billionaire to act in their name, they need a system in which they can speak up for themselves, and as long as the media and political leadership are focused so intently on the concerns and desires of people in Howard Schultz's tax bracket, that can't happen.