Sanders IS indeed divisive -- and that's okay.
I was speaking in February on the day of the Nevada caucuses to a good friend of mine who abhors Trump and is someone you'd normally expect to fit the profile of a progressive Democrat. She's highly educated, in fact she's an educator herself, in her 40's, from Maine and Vermont, a scientist by training, unmarried, and an all-around extremely kindhearted person. I mentioned to her that I am an enthusiastic supporter of Bernie Sanders and his campaign, and she said that she admires Sanders, but is also kind of worried or afraid. If I understood her views correctly, she was afraid that the Republican right has turned so nasty and so authoritarian that it is hard to see how installing a fighter like Sanders is going to bring healing and reconciliation between voters.
Her father, by the way, is a Trump fan, but we didn't talk much about what he admires about Trump (which we should have done -- it's our job on the left to understand how people we know and love could follow someone as hateful as Trump).
It makes sense to me that many potential Sanders allies might hesitate to support him because they are worrying about bigger fights, more division, more extremes and more extremists and fewer people who are able to even talk to each other about political disagreements. Perhaps someone like Biden or Warren or one of the other moderates would be a better choice, someone who might be able to bring people together more than Sanders can?
If you're a Sanders supporter like me, you probably just screamed in your head "NO!" when confronted with the opinion that Biden could be a greater source of good than Sanders. But I can't state enough how important it is for the Sanders campaign to understand such a view, and to engage such voters. Yet many Sanders supporters have begun telling themselves that Warren and Biden and the other candidates for the Democratic nomination are so ideologically flawed (a mostly true argument) that anyone who supports them must be somehow dishonest or morally lazy or unserious about opposing Trump (which is mostly false, but even when it's not false it's usually a losing case to try to make to someone directly). Warren and Biden supporters see the zealots among Sanders' supporters, feel unwelcome, associate the candidate with his loudest voters, and lose interest. For many of them, if they end up voting for Sanders it will be with the same sort of nose-pinching reluctance that we Sanders supporters felt when we voted for Clinton in 2016.
Sanders IS divisive -- and that's okay. But my point is not that we should embrace his divisiveness and amplify it when addressing potential allies and supporters, like longtime Democrat voters. The divisiveness that we should embrace is the fight that a Sanders nomination, and then a Sanders administration, would bring to Trump's Republican party, which is utterly corrupted, and to some extent to the Democratic party, which is somewhat corrupted. It's going to take a candidate with an entire movement behind him to contest the rottenness of the status quo.
People who are unwilling to go this far, who think that a candidate like Pete Buttigieg can somehow restore the Obama-era status quo of Democratic influence and power, are strange creatures indeed. I have a hard time seeing where they're coming from. For one thing, was the Obama era really so great? Obama represents the high water mark of the Democratic party? Even if you admire Obama personally (he seems like a pretty decent man to me) and even if you think he was a good president (to me he was a tremendous disappointment), he represented a Democratic party that was constantly powerless against Republican opposition. And those were pre-Trump Republicans; how on earth are post-Trump Republicans expected to treat President Buttigieg (or President Biden or President Klobuchar)? They would find ways to undermine every single action coming out of a Democratic White House -- even if they didn't control Congress, which they might be able to do. And the claims on Fox News would be beyond hysterical. Because they already are. Don't we need a post-Trump president who will be far bolder than Obama was?
Of course, Republicans would do the same to Sanders as they would to a more moderate Democrat. In fact, they'd probably fight Sanders even harder, the Fox segments would be even more hysterical. But the Republican party has grown so extreme and unreasonable that it doesn't matter which Democrat would replace Trump; all of the current candidates would be unable to unify the country (and that's assuming that a Democrat even can replace Trump -- a big assumption).
Democrats can't shy away from a fight. Parts of the Republican party are pretty much openly fascist, and even Bernie Sanders cannot unify a country in which fascism enjoys some vocal political support. Please remember that Obama tried to unify the country, and Republicans simply declared war on him. When they weren't openly racist against him, they called him a socialist.
Well, Sanders has got them beat -- he calls himself a socialist, for heaven's sake (even though he isn't even a proper one). When my friend expressed her worry on the phone that a President Sanders would simply sharpen the divide, my answer to her was "Good" -- we need to be willing to draw the line against Trump, to stand up to the corruption and greed that he represents, and to piss a few people off in the process. Unity and reconciliation are still the goal, but unity can only come by giving people a clear and compelling alternative to Trump, and working hard to win them aboard while also working hard to improve their lives. Only Sanders offers such a clear and compelling alternative.
Her father, by the way, is a Trump fan, but we didn't talk much about what he admires about Trump (which we should have done -- it's our job on the left to understand how people we know and love could follow someone as hateful as Trump).
It makes sense to me that many potential Sanders allies might hesitate to support him because they are worrying about bigger fights, more division, more extremes and more extremists and fewer people who are able to even talk to each other about political disagreements. Perhaps someone like Biden or Warren or one of the other moderates would be a better choice, someone who might be able to bring people together more than Sanders can?
If you're a Sanders supporter like me, you probably just screamed in your head "NO!" when confronted with the opinion that Biden could be a greater source of good than Sanders. But I can't state enough how important it is for the Sanders campaign to understand such a view, and to engage such voters. Yet many Sanders supporters have begun telling themselves that Warren and Biden and the other candidates for the Democratic nomination are so ideologically flawed (a mostly true argument) that anyone who supports them must be somehow dishonest or morally lazy or unserious about opposing Trump (which is mostly false, but even when it's not false it's usually a losing case to try to make to someone directly). Warren and Biden supporters see the zealots among Sanders' supporters, feel unwelcome, associate the candidate with his loudest voters, and lose interest. For many of them, if they end up voting for Sanders it will be with the same sort of nose-pinching reluctance that we Sanders supporters felt when we voted for Clinton in 2016.
Sanders IS divisive -- and that's okay. But my point is not that we should embrace his divisiveness and amplify it when addressing potential allies and supporters, like longtime Democrat voters. The divisiveness that we should embrace is the fight that a Sanders nomination, and then a Sanders administration, would bring to Trump's Republican party, which is utterly corrupted, and to some extent to the Democratic party, which is somewhat corrupted. It's going to take a candidate with an entire movement behind him to contest the rottenness of the status quo.
People who are unwilling to go this far, who think that a candidate like Pete Buttigieg can somehow restore the Obama-era status quo of Democratic influence and power, are strange creatures indeed. I have a hard time seeing where they're coming from. For one thing, was the Obama era really so great? Obama represents the high water mark of the Democratic party? Even if you admire Obama personally (he seems like a pretty decent man to me) and even if you think he was a good president (to me he was a tremendous disappointment), he represented a Democratic party that was constantly powerless against Republican opposition. And those were pre-Trump Republicans; how on earth are post-Trump Republicans expected to treat President Buttigieg (or President Biden or President Klobuchar)? They would find ways to undermine every single action coming out of a Democratic White House -- even if they didn't control Congress, which they might be able to do. And the claims on Fox News would be beyond hysterical. Because they already are. Don't we need a post-Trump president who will be far bolder than Obama was?
Of course, Republicans would do the same to Sanders as they would to a more moderate Democrat. In fact, they'd probably fight Sanders even harder, the Fox segments would be even more hysterical. But the Republican party has grown so extreme and unreasonable that it doesn't matter which Democrat would replace Trump; all of the current candidates would be unable to unify the country (and that's assuming that a Democrat even can replace Trump -- a big assumption).
Democrats can't shy away from a fight. Parts of the Republican party are pretty much openly fascist, and even Bernie Sanders cannot unify a country in which fascism enjoys some vocal political support. Please remember that Obama tried to unify the country, and Republicans simply declared war on him. When they weren't openly racist against him, they called him a socialist.
Well, Sanders has got them beat -- he calls himself a socialist, for heaven's sake (even though he isn't even a proper one). When my friend expressed her worry on the phone that a President Sanders would simply sharpen the divide, my answer to her was "Good" -- we need to be willing to draw the line against Trump, to stand up to the corruption and greed that he represents, and to piss a few people off in the process. Unity and reconciliation are still the goal, but unity can only come by giving people a clear and compelling alternative to Trump, and working hard to win them aboard while also working hard to improve their lives. Only Sanders offers such a clear and compelling alternative.
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