TEACH, NOT PREACH

I have been resisting the urge to write about this election for weeks now. It is a delicious situation, with so much to write about, but the increasingly demented rhetoric on the Democratic side has made me want to remain silent. What I have to say can only incite more demented rhetoric, and yet, I feel like I have to speak up. So this is it: I am supporting Bernie, am voting for him in the primary and would happily vote for him for president. But I don’t believe he will be the nominee and will happily vote for Clinton in the fall. A few things: I don’t like Hillary Clinton, and I do like Bernie Sanders. But I’m not sure Bernie would be the better president. This is the crux: we are in an election year the Republicans should win, but because they are, well, the Republicans, they will likely lose. The idea that Bernie is the stronger candidate in the fall has not at all been demonstrated. The polls that show him ahead aren’t accurate. You would have to have very granular polling of a few key swing states, and good polling in all 50, to really say that Bernie is the stronger general election candidate. If Trump or Cruz are the nominees it’s possible, but what if they pull out a Rubio or Kasich? Not likely, but consider that. Also, my guts tell me after 55 years of life in America that somehow the establishment will make sure there is never a Democratic Socialist president. I don’t know how they’ll do it, but I’m confident they’ll find a way, even if it means a Republican makes it.

I am voting for Sanders because I agree with him on the issues, and I love his persona, or rather, I love who he is. This is emotional. I grew up with guys like Bernie. And they have been carrying the torch for economic democracy through the long horrid decades of the Nixon/Reagan/Bush reaction. Bernie is better than ANY Republican. And the Republican Party and platform will dominate even a reasonable, decent man like Kasich, who, by the way, is to the right of Reagan and Nixon. Compassionate Conservativism is Katrina and Flint. Sanders is not just a protest candidate. I know, I’ve voted for them all, and none have gotten the kinds of numbers he has. It’s exciting to vote for a candidate who says things no major party candidate has said since Robert Kennedy ran.

I have to publicly disagree with my dear old friend Al Giordano, whose latest tirade against Sanders really goes over the line. In his latest newsletter on the NY primary (find Al on TSU) he says Sanders’ appeal to class conceals a “dangerous undertow of white supremacy.” Al, this is over the line. You know damn well that Bernie Sanders is not a white supremacist, and that his economic populism is not rooted in the 19^th century but in socialist/left/progressivism that ultimately has roots in Marx. The Communist Party in America was the earliest and strongest supporter of civil rights on the American political scene. And Bernie’s economic message goes absolutely to the heart of institutional racism. The South Bronx and neighborhoods like it would benefit more from his policies than Clinton’s. Universal health care, free college and infrastructure investment would improve the lives of people of color period. Without getting into the details, imagine the Bronx (in a major river delta) if we continue to deny climate change and refuse to finance infrastructure projects that will mitigate rising sea levels? The main critique here is, he’ll never get those bills through congress. Agreed. But Ronald Reagan won elections advocating policies he could never get through congress. To call Sanders and his supporters closet (or unconscious) white supremacists, and continually to caricature them as clueless white millennials is insulting and serves no purpose. I agree that the picture you present of Bernie supporters in the Bronx, particularly the vile sign The Bronx Is Berning, is ugly. But the fact is he enjoys widespread minority support among young people, and even with the bad press and familiarity of the Clintons in those communities, decent support among older voters. We both know Hillary is going to be the nominee, but we also both know that she can’t win without a high turnout, and that Sanders is the key to a high turnout. We need to encourage young voters to see this as a long struggle, and we need to fold them into the party, not drive them out with ad hominem attacks. Stereotypes are damaging because they aren’t true.

Bernie supporters, please, relax. When you lose it isn’t because the system is rigged against you. You lose because as great as Bernie is, this is still America. It might be that everyone you know supports him, it might be that he is full of passionate intensity, and it might be that he has won 7 or 8 states. But that’s not how it works. Obama didn’t win just because he got 30,000 people to show up at rallies, or because he was full of passion, he won because he had the better ground game and worked out the delegate math. Winning 7 states where 12 people live isn’t the same as winning 1 state with 20 million people. Bernie doesn’t deserve to win because he is right. No one ‘deserves’ to win. The one with the most votes wins, and that’s Clinton, just as it was Obama in 2008. Our best hope is to stick together. Hillary Clinton is not likeable, but she’s not the caricature that Republicans have carefully limned either. She is the consummate insider. There are rewards and risks with such politicians. But they can get things done. Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt are examples of insider presidents who accomplished much. In Johnson’s case we all know the downside. No one voted for Nixon because they loved him, and I suspect few will vote for Hillary because they love her. But the Clintons, even if they seem to lack core values, have an excellent nose for the middle and what can be accomplished. If the pressure from the progressive wing of the party is sufficient, if the Sanders campaign can turn out voters not just in this election, but in the midterms and in local elections, then the party can be moved to the left, because progressives will have power. The Republicans have demonstrated the danger of the ideological echo chamber. America is not, fundamentally, an ideological nation, but a nation of coalitions. Every year we hear from Republicans that if they’d only run a more pure candidate, then they’d win. Democrats should beware of that path. We defeat them when we are united and when we vote. Hillary and Bernie represent powerful choices of the center and the left. We need each other to prevent a catastrophe. But it is not enough anymore to simply be like the child hiding an alcoholic father’s bottle of liquor. We have to change this country from the ground up, not just turn out every 4 years with feelings of idealism and entitlement, followed by disillusionment and apathy. Al Giordano has worked his entire life for this. I guess the Bronx really pissed him off. Al, you need to teach, not preach!