So...Mother Jones went full Hillbot in their latest argument for why Sanders couldn't win. Mainly because it's not much of an argument at all, it's a chart. And it's a bad chart. Essentially, they used some data to rank how liberal democratic nominees have been from most to least, and argue that those on the far right, which are the most liberal, can't win. And who is the most liberal on this list? Bernie Sanders. So basically, it's just another way of saying "he's too liberal!" And it's a bad argument on so many levels.
First of all, what is a liberal? According to this, who the heck knows! It ain't my definition of liberal. I mean they have LBJ as the most conservative democrat, and while he did have southern conservative leanings at times, he did many SUPER liberal things that many democrats wouldn't dream of doing. This guy brought us civil rights and the war on poverty. The modern conservative movement actually arose in direct opposition to his legacy. He's conservative? Really? And why is Obama so conservative? I mean, I admit he is a bit of a conservative lite in some ways (most dems are these days), but he's more conservative than freaking Bill Clinton? Really? And Hillary is more liberal than either of them? And why is Gore considered so liberal? The list goes on and on. FDR and Truman are conveniently missing from this list altogether, possibly because they would crap all over this theory too.
Comparing Clinton and Sanders, yes, I would say Sanders is more liberal on economics, but what about social issues? The idea I got from the primaries is that on some issues Sanders wasn't liberal enough, and these issues might be important to discuss since it seems like social issues are a factor in how conservative these guys are ranked. While Sanders was very hardcore on economics, I don't think he was so much on social issues, although he was still arguably quite liberal. On gun control for instance, Clinton constantly tried to outdo him and be more against guns than Sanders was, even to the point of wanting to sue firearm manufacturers for gun deaths, which would quite frankly probably put gun companies out of business. And what about identity politics? Wasn't it the Clinton camp themselves that argued that Sanders was too "white", and thus, too conservative, to make it in the democratic party? And this is probably a really big issue. Identity politics Clinton used was actually offputting and probably drove people to Trump and his more bigoted anti political correctness positions. I don't think the public is opposed to being for the rights of whatever underprivileged group exists, but the Clinton camp was so sanctimonious and holier than thou it probably was offputting while Sanders was not. Even though Sanders was for more or less the same things, he carried himself much better and would have been better with the general public. This isn't to say that Sanders is more conservative than Clinton, overall he was more liberal, but honestly, there were a few issues where Sanders would've arguably went over much better with more conservative voters outside of economics. Even if the positions were similar, messaging is important. And the dems doubled down on the most obnoxious, offputting way to market their ideas.
And finally, and this is the big one, it ignores the atmosphere of this election. Party realignments happen. Electorates do change their voting behaviors. It's not the 70s and 80s any more. I don't think the theory regarding being too left holds any more. It did even as recently as 2008 and maybe even 2012, but I think America is ready for a party realignment. I discussed this before. The people are fed up. I don't think they know what they want yet, but they do recognize that politics as usual is failing them. Even a few short years ago, I was against many of the ideas I now talk about on this blog. I grew up conservative, fearing redistribution of wealth, fearing the left, being pro capitalistic, the whole 9 yards. What changed? The system failed us. That's what. The recession happened. And times of economic change tend to be correlated with great economic crises. It took the depression to give us FDR, it took stagflation to give us Reagan. And it took the great recession to get me on board with the ideas I now advocate for. And I believe many people feel similarly to me, even if they aren't aware of the ideas I'm aware of. We're all facing the same problems, and people want answers. They wouldn't vote for Clinton because she offered none. They voted for Trump because he at least offered them hope, even if it was a false one. But you know what? Trump is gonna fail. Because his ideas are what caused the problems to begin with.
You see, our problems are a result of our cumulative political choices over the course of the past, say, 40 years now. It's a bipartisan problem. Both the republicans and the democrats have failed to address them. The whole paradigm in which these conservative right wing ideas flourish in both parties IS the problem. The lukewarm democrats and the hard right republicans. Government by organized money as FDR would've put it. That is the problem. Capitalism is the problem. And it's time we start picking up the mantle put down by the likes of Johnson, Nixon, and McGovern all those years ago and start fixing our issues again.We run a candidate who can fix these problems, and they'll be revered in American history, much like the right reveres Reagan and the left FDR.
And this is why I think America is at the point why we shouldn't shy away from left wing ideas. America is ready, even if we don't know it yet. Why? Because solutions to our problems can only come from the left. Not the right. The right is the problem. The sooner we realize this, the better.
And going back to the concept of party realignments, let's go back 40 years. I'm sure if someone ran this argument in 1976 to discourage people from electing Reagan in 1980, that it would hold too. Instead of screaming about McGovern, we'd be screaming about Hoover. The republican political establishment would talk about how Eisenhower and McGovern saved the right from itself and made it relevant in the age of the New Deal. Reagan would be too far right, and conventional knowledge would say running too far to the right would be political suicide. And in 1976, this would make sense. But what happened in 1980? Reagan happened, the country ran to the right, and hasn't looked back since until very recently.
America is ready for a left wing president. It's the only kind of president that can solve our problems. The center can't fix them, the right can't fix them. Look around you, by the standards of our current political paradigm, Obama is the best we can do. He got unemployment down, he saved the economy, everything is stable and growing again. But people aren't happy. Why? Because the problem that ails people is systemic to capitalism itself. Capitalism is the problem. And only the left criticizes capitalism in such a way it can adequately define problems and solve them. The right can't do that. They'll just double down on what's causing the problems to begin with, because they tend to adopt the values of capitalism uncritically, and many refuse to even admit it does have problems. Any problem that exists is the left's fault to them. It's all those darned regulations and welfare queens that's causing the problems. They demand more purism, thinking it will solve the problems when it will only make them worse. It will increase inequality, make labor even more precarious, and reducing the living standards and well beings of workers until we reach third world sweatshop levels. So choose wisely America. Do you want a right winger who makes your life worse? Do you want a centrist who does things halfy halfy? Or do you want a progressive who actually can bring about the changes we need? Solutions are out there. We just need to embrace them for a change. And this involves shedding our fear of embracing the left.
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