Howard Schultz's Java Jive

Everyone has a view of Howard Schultz, the former Starbucks CEO who has expressed interest in running for President as a "centrist independent" in 2020.  Democrats see his criticism of ideas such as universal Medicare and a tax on the wealthy as an assault on and an insult of Democratic principles.  Republicans see his critiques as a welcome diversion from the recent government shutdown - a diversion that shows an opposition in turmoil after Hillary Clinton's fall.  And both parties see Schultz as a possible spoiler candidate that could win enough votes to deny the eventual 2020 Democratic presidential nominee of a victory, handling the election to Trump. 

I see an egomaniac who has an incredibly huge superiority complex.

Schultz comes across as just another businessman who claims to have all the answers.  He presents himself as an example of a real American success story - someone who grew up in a Brooklyn housing project and made his way to Seattle as a coffee-machine salesman who ended up joining a small coffee shop in Pike Place Market and made it a respected and profitable chain, becoming rich and successful in the process.  Right.  Schultz may not have been as ruthless as McDonald's founder Ray Kroc, but as the builder of present-day Starbucks - the McDonald's of java - he took something as quirky, funky and subversive as the coffee house and turned it into a parody of itself, a commodity.  Sixty years ago, the coffee house was where new ideas bubbled up outside the mainstream and where alternative art and music flourished, as depicted in the 2013 movie Inside Llewyn Davis.  Now it's just a place to get a cup of coffee.  Music?  I've never seen a live musical performance at a Starbucks, but I have noticed the CDs it sells - usually from artists who blend folk and New Age into something that sort of sounds like seventies soft rock.  Starbucks may help baristas get a college education, and it may pay employees better than most chain eateries, but its success is just another example of the homogenization of America.   Schultz himself may be more liberal on gay marriage and climate change than the current President, but replacing one billionaire CEO with another is not what I would call an effective panacea for America's ills.

I would consider Schultz for President if I found any agreement with anything in his platform.  The only problem is that he doesn't have one.  No one seems to know what Schultz stands for, other than doing things differently from how Trump does them.  All I know for certain is that he wants an economic system that allows people to aspire to become as rich and successful as he's been - but of course, not everyone can be a corporate CEO.  Most people, the kind that congressional members like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez represent, just need a safety net and a guarantee of a decent quality of life.  He fears Elizabeth Warren's economic proposals because he'd have to pay more money to help support it.

Schultz told CBS's "60 Minutes" that, as a Jew, he hopes that people see him as a candidate who happens be Jewish and not as the Jewish candidate.  Trust me, he doesn't have to worry about that - voters will see him as just another rich white guy telling poor people, women, and racial minorities what's best for them.  Michael Bloomberg may be similarly tone-deaf about economic issues, but he has a record as a former New York City mayor to give him credibility, and he's willing to run as a Democrat to put his take on the issues in the debate.  Whether or not Schultz is being a spoiler for the Democrats, he sure is spoiling the debate on the issues with his smug, superior attitude.  A guy who got rich selling overpriced coffee to pseudo-hipsters who don't know Bob Dylan from Dylan Thomas (whoever he was!)?  I'll pass, thanks.

And Starbucks' iced tea sucks.