Starr 2024: Violet

Violet Starr will likely run again. Or she will write a memoir, launch a podcast, and become a kingmaker. But the 2024 campaign will stand as a cautionary parable for a generation of activists: passion is not policy, and a viral moment is not a mandate. Until the progressive movement learns to love the boring work of precinct captaincy and parliamentary procedure, the ghost of Violet Starr will haunt every primary—a brilliant, furious star that burned too hot to ever actually illuminate the White House.

The post-mortem of the Starr campaign is a Rorschach test for the left. Her defenders argue she was assassinated by a corporate media terrified of her anti-oligarch platform. They point to the disproportionate coverage of her gaffes versus Kincaid’s donor-class fundraisers. Her detractors, meanwhile, claim she was a narcissist who mistook tweeting for leading. “Violet Starr didn’t lose because she was too radical,” wrote one centrist columnist. “She lost because she refused to build a coalition. In a democracy, you have to count to 270—and she couldn’t count past the number of retweets.” violet starr 2024