I must confess I committed the high crimes of pointing out HRC was not a strong candidate, Pointing out her campaign paradigm was not built for the social media age, and staying a Bernie supporter too long in 2016. I was thus labeled a“Bernie Bro”, mostly by Russian bots looking to sew division, so no hard feeling here for being right ;) . Today I make my first donation to the Warren campaign. I'n this diary I'll layout the reasons I'm throwing my efforts behind Warren and recounting an opportunity I had to meet Warren back in 2011 at a small event inDorchester Mass. Perhaps this is where I should start because, in a sense, it strikes at the core advantage Elizabeth has over Bernie.
I'll skip a long setup suffice to say that Elizabeth's 2011 listening tour proved her to be both a great listener and very approachable an so I had the opportunity to pose this question to her. “How do you respond to people who call your attempts at banking regulations socialist?” Her response, paraphrased here and remembered as best I can, was this:
“Well that's what they do when they don't want you to actually think about policy right? They label you one thing or another. So, theres all kinds of human interaction. There's things that effect only me like; what I choose to wear, who I chose to love, what time I wanna wakeup in the morning. And these things the government should have no business in right? So a libertarian mindset maybe the most applicable to those situations. Then there's situations and human interactions that effect a we a small group of people that all can agree on an action willingly partake in it. I wanna go out to dinner and the local chef wants to cook it for me. I want new blouse and local seamstress wants to sew it for me. These are situations Capitalism works great. The trading of talents and materials to better each others lives works great and a capitalist mindset can be the best starting point to manage those interactions. Then there's the us, the all of us. Things we all need to rely on, things we can let be on the complete control of one person or small group of people. Clean drinking water, clean air, a commerce and finance system that's open and fair and free from skimmers and cheats, things like fire and police departments, and how we care for our elderly. And the this is where pure capitalism breaks down, and we need to consider everyone in our democracy. This is where governments need to take a strong role. So the corporate interests are always going to try to label us and divide us. It's our job to make people think.”
So this is the mistake I think Bernie has made in his career; calling himself a Socialist. When, in fact, Bernie is not a Socialist on everything, but the self-applied label allows people to discount him. On guns Bernie sees that to the vast majority of rural Vermonters owning a gun is personal choice that effects only them. So his first inclination is to lean toward a libertarian mindset, but he also sees that assault weapons and lack of mental health care are effecting all of us so he breaks from his libertarian leaning and pushes for those things that would solve the problem. Bernie and Elizabeth actually do share much of the same philosophy, but Bernie puts a label on himself that allows people to tune him out. Elizabeth say's “sorry no labels. I'm going to make you think”. To be clear this label is not an insurmountable hurdle for Sanders and he's proven that. He can beat Trump, but in the end not as badly as Elizabeth for reasons I'll continue to lay out here. Some day when we have universal healthcare, free from middlemen and skimmers, they'll be a statue of FDR, Barrack, Bernie and hopefully Liz as the three people most responsible for making Healthcare a human right. As important as Bernie has been to progressive politics the time is now for Warren.
So, reason to switch from Bernie to Warren number:
- No Labels - All the social and economic justice without the self inflicted label hurdle.
- Attacks have been effective– I argued in 2015-2016 that HRC should not be the nominee because her negatives had been driven down so far. HRC had been ruthlessly attacked and smeared over several decades, and whether it was fair or not we couldn't put forward a candidate with 100% name recognition and a negative approval rating. I also argued that many Obama grassroots supporters and POC still had hard feeling about the 2008 campaign tactics of the HRC campaign and her dragging out the primary fight. While Bernie is nationally a popular figure the distribution of his support and his near 100% name recognition leave him little path for growth. The Russian seeds of discord, the online misogyny and vile behavior back and forth in 2016, was effective. There are enough HRC supporters out there who believe that Bernie supporters are all sexist white male pigs and will withhold their support from him. In key states this withholding of support could be critical to not flipping the senate.
- It's time for woman president – We can not throw up the white flag and say “men are just more electable” That's just plain bullshit. Enough of the “we must put up Biden” he's “Safe” I argued in 2016 that HRC had never really beaten a strong challenger. The same is absolutely true for Biden.
- She's the right woman for right now - I'm a big believer that the moment finds the President. One of the problems with HRC was her perceived ambition for the presidency. She talked about wanting to be president as child and seemed to focus her entire life on whatever next step or position would advance her toward that goal. Starting off as a Goldwater girl, to a hawkish tough 3rd way Democrat, to transplant New Yorker when a senate seat opened, to self proclaimed progressive. Women would be right to point out that this ambition and ladder-climbing would be seen as a strength in a male candidate or glossed over. To that argument I point to Mitt Romney who suffered much of the same critique. We find ourselves in a time of exploding debt, a Wall Street “Everything Bubble” near popping, decreasing faith in the value and fairness of our money system, and looming economic slowdown (if not melt down). Of the current field I trust two people to take on the banks when the shit hits the fan, Sanders & Warren. I think only Warren can win with the necessary support to beat Nikki Haley (you read that right. see 5) and make real change.
- Trump may not be the candidate we're facing. - Imagine this scenario: It's midway through the primary season and it looks like Biden (or Bernie or any male) is going to win. Trump has a lock on the GOP nomination. GOP leaders sit down and talk about how to salvage the Party. An idea is floated:
- Trump feigns health problems
- Trump names Nikki Haley as VP pick replacing Pence
- Trump secures Nomination
- Trump declares complete victory. Announces at Nominating convention he's accomplished all his goals in just 4 years, and for health reasons he will step aside “A very short period of time” after being sworn in making Nikki Haley the first female president.
- Nikki Halley announces she will put Mike Pence forward as her replacement VP in the new administration as soon as Trump steps down. She and Pence now make all future campaign events together with Trump running his own white power rallies.
- Trump campaign now insists Haley will debate the Democratic nominee for president.
This scenario has several benefits to the GOP: Trump avoids tough questions about being unindicted co-conspirator in felony fraud case and all his many scandals. Suburban women now have the choice of voting Haley or Biden and get to say “look the GOP is really the pro-woman party”. Trumps name at the top of the ticket gets his cult out to the polls, and Trump still claims victory and get to hold his white power rallies. If he loses it now it's because Halley wasn't strong enough. So he has his scapegoat. If he wins, “a very short period of time” ends up meaning he'll hold the office just long enough for statute of limitation on his inauguration committee and campaign finance crimes to expire. Trump does not care about being president or leading. Trump wants to build his white nationalist cult so that prosecutors are afraid to put him in jail...where belongs. He wants to continue to sell out America to line his pockets, and he wants to be seen as a winner. So if your entire game plan is about what candidate can beat Trump you may be thinking about it the wrong way. Let’s put up an inspiring woman who’s right for this moment in American history. Haley vs Biden is the GOP dream matchup and if we’re not careful we’ll give it to them.
- Bernie’s Baptist Problem — The 2016 MSM loved talking about Bernie having an “problem” with black voters. A convenient narrative for the corporatists, that seemed to be backed up by data. Closer examination of precincts Bernie got creamed in shows that Bernie’s problem had nothing to do with skin color and more to do with proximity to one or more Baptist Churches. Bernie won or held his own with POC in northern metropolitan areas. He lost by big margins amongst POC in areas where primaries were closed and that where the demographic skewed heavily Christian/Baptist and older/more conservative. The primary calendar reads very much the same for 2020. If a true progressive is to grab the nomination and avoid a brokered convention they are going to have to run the big 3 table prior to Super Tuesday : That means winning Iowa, New Hampshire AND South Carolina. I think Warren is the only true progressive who can do this.
That’s my brain dump on the primaries and path forward. What I hope it that regardless of what happens Sanders and Warren sit down and game plan out how to prevent another 2016 disaster. Likely this means an agreement between them that one with more delegates going into Super Tuesday will be the progressive standard bearer. The other will step aside and enthusiastically throw their support behind the other. I hope to see you all at the September 9-13 “Week of Action” in DC indivisible.org/…