What’s Up With Howard Schultz?

Coffee mogul Howard Schultz enjoying his brief time in the limelight.Brian Cahn/ZUMA

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.

What’s the deal with Howard Schultz? I mean really: does anyone know? He can’t possibly believe he has a chance of winning on a platform of social liberalism and fiscal austerity. This is roughly the platform Gary Johnson ran on in 2016, and even in the midst of the greatest displeasure with the establishment candidates in years, he only polled 3 percent.

So what does Schultz add to that? Well, he’s a billionaire, and billionaires are kind of unpopular right now. On the other hand, as a billionaire he can blanket the airwaves with his unpopular stands. So maybe he could poll around 1 percent.

I don’t get it. He apparently has no real policy proposals to offer. Instead, he’s spent the past week insulting the various Democratic nominees. But I suppose that might be smart. There are people who dislike Democrats—though most of them are Republicans who support Trump—but there’s virtually nobody who’s going to like his policies once he finally gets around to admitting what they really are.

I dunno. I was emailing with a friend recently about why Schultz was running, and my final comment was “Never underestimate ‘unrestrained vanity project’ as a reason, especially when billionaires are involved.” Maybe I should just stop there and not try to make any further sense of it.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate