Clinton and Sanders

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I cannot imagine that the national Democratic Party will nominate Bernie Sanders. But Hillary Clinton has her work cut out for her. Listening to Hillary, her message seems to be “I’ll fix everything. Whatever you come up with, I’ll fix it.” Working on everything is a decent brief for a President focused on domestic policy. But it’s not a terribly coherent message. And Sanders is nothing but coherence.

I’m going to try to find a less rushed moment to write in more detail on this. But the drama and history of the 2008 race, what made it so intense, glorious and envenomed was that it became a clash between two profoundly righteous causes of entitlement. ‘Entitlement’ is usually a bad word these days. But that’s not the only meaning – and it’s not the meaning I’m using here. Both campaigns in 2008 had a deep, historically grounded and intense belief that destiny was on their side – the first African-American President, the first female President, representatives of two critical pillars of the Democratic coalition, representatives of the great rights movements of the 20th century, who’d never been represented at the top of the ticket or in the White House.

One had to lose. But giving up destiny is really, really hard. It would have been brutal for either side.

It was Hillary Clinton’s time, her moment. But she ran headlong into the force of Barack Obama. The rest is history. Somehow Hillary has managed to run headlong into another destiny. Bernie Sanders is no Barack Obama – on many, many fronts, some of which I’ll think we’ll see become clear shortly. This is an important moment to remember – these are two incredibly white states with almost none of the ethnic and racial diversity that characterizes contemporary America. But youth and a deep critique of the early 21st century US political economy are a movement, a destiny and a force on their own.

This won’t end quickly.

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