TPM Reader AD gives us her take on Clinton and Sanders supporters. And it reminds me that a great deal of the caricatures of supporters on each side are based on the most voluble and acerbic readers on both sides …
I have been a longtime reader and finally joined Prime because I thought I should put a little money where my eyeballs are. It was a tough decision, namely because from time to time I have been taken aback by the reaction to certain news stories by the site (by which I mean by you and/or the vast majority of commenters.) I was appalled by the overwhelming condemnation of Edward Snowden in 2013, and I was not sure if I would continue reading. But I did, because I appreciated and continue to appreciate your political analysis.
I’m now having a similar through-the-looking-glass feeling reading the coverage of Sanders here. The intense hatred for him by your readers, the mockery and scorn of so many of the comments…well, it makes me wonder how it is that Sanders supporters have gotten a reputation for nastiness.
In a recent blog post, I think you argued that Clinton and Trump are speaking entirely different languages, mutually unintelligible. Well, that’s starting to be how I perceive the gap in comprehension between Clinton and Sanders supporters.
A little something about me: I am an Ivy-educated native New Yorker, a woman in my 40s, a feminist, successful in a field in which my income ceiling is probably around $40,000 a year, assuming all continues to go well. I’m on the ACA Community Plan (that’s a level below Bronze, if you are lucky enough not to know) and find it such a horror that I occasionally borrow money from my sister to pay out of pocket when I need to see a doctor. I have been a registered Democrat since I was 18 and I have voted in every midterm. I called and canvassed for Bill Clinton twice, for Gore, for Kerry, for Obama twice. And now for Bernie as though my life depended on it.
There is delusion on both sides of this primary. On the Sanders side, there are some real doozies: no, dear BernieOrBusters, Bernie will not win at a contested convention. And no, provisional ballots will not ultimately show that Bernie really won New York. And no, Tim Canova is not going to unseat Debbie Wasserman Schultz. (That last one stings the most.)
But all of those will be cleared up by July at the very latest.
The Hillary-side delusions worry me more, because they seem to have no end-by date. Here’s a sampling:
Delusion #1: Bernie is not a lifelong member of the Democratic Party and people care about that. Um, 41% of the registered voters in this country are independents. No one cares (and no one should care) about Party loyalty more than they care about actual issues. The Democratic Party platform has shifted notably, and more than once, over the 20th century. It will shift again. One columnist said recently (might have been Bill Curry?) that the Party has been treating its base like nothing more than a mailing list. That must change. The standard narrative seems to be that white working class voters left the Democratic Party because they are racist, evangelical, anti-choice or anti-LGBT. And therefore we Democrats are on the side of the angels for saying “good riddance.” This is dangerous self-flattery. A large number of white working class and progressive voters left the Party because the Party abandoned them in its relentless shift to the corporate center. And a lot of Bernie supporters either are those voters or have great sympathy for them.
Delusion #2: Support for Bernie is a cult of personality, and depends on people believing he is perfect and pure. I have come into contact with a lot of Bernie supporters over the last months, at various levels of involvement: online, in campaign offices, while canvassing door to door. I have met no one who supports him because she thinks Sanders himself is a saint. We support him because he is the first viable candidate in thirty-plus years to speak to the reality of our conditions, to cut through the endemic oh-dearism of the political class, and offer substantial proposals rather than platitudes.
(*I know the Clinton narrative is that his proposals are airy-fairy unicorn dust, but that is a false narrative. What he proposes, both in his general principles and his concrete policy platform, is a reorientation of ‘national priorities,’ as he puts it. His plans are ambitious, but not particularly radical. I have also never met anyone, by the way, who believes that his plans would be implemented in some kind of sweeping 100-days type scenario. We all know well that we would have a big big fight on our hands that would result, at best, in some small steps towards these reforms. You know, pragmatism.)
Delusion #3: Once this election is over and Clinton is safely installed in the White House, this will all just go away and we can get back to making fun of Republicans like God intended. I don’t want to overstate anything, or make predictions, but I see no evidence that Bernie supporters are planning to go away after the convention. On the contrary, I see a lot of evidence to suggest that the demands they are making on the Democratic Party will only get louder. The rightward drift of the Party has been well-documented, as has the unsustainable nature of our lopsided economy. This is the correction. Or I should say: this is the best-case scenario correction. We could also have Trumpism, if you’d rather. Between nativist scape-goating or worse on the one side, and progressive economic reform on the other, I know what I’m choosing.
I canvassed in Connecticut (in a town Sanders won) and spoke to a woman in her mid-60s, who invited me into her home and said, “I’m Bernie all the way to the end. Look around: this isn’t middle class anymore, this is just poverty. And it’s not just me, there is no more middle class, there’s just poverty.” Can’t say it better than that.
I want to add just one more thing, about the comment by reader MS about supposed sexism within the Sanders campaign. I have been closely attuned to the gender politics of this campaign; they have been fascinating and it’s a personal issue for me, as it is for many women. I have not once seen Sanders himself ignore or belittle or disrespect Clinton in a way that rang my “sexism alert” bell. I have certainly seen misogynistic statements made about Clinton on the internet. And I am naturally disgusted by them. But I see none of that from Sanders himself or from within the volunteer communities with which I’ve been involved. I do not believe for one second that Sanders himself is motivated by chauvinism. His criticisms (with the exception of the boneheaded ‘unqualified’ episode) have been fair and based on her record: that IS showing respect.
I have, however, through surrogates and Clinton herself, received the message loud and clear that as a woman I am meant to get in formation and support the woman, all policy disagreements be damned. Because of the special place in hell and all that. Just like Hillary did when she endorsed Zephyr Teachout over Cuomo in 2014, right? Oh wait.
But to the larger point, I would only remind that the kind of entrepreneurial, professional-class feminism that Clinton represents has not always been so great for poor women or women of color. To say nothing of the women and children (both American and not) affected by war, or those harmed or displaced by climate change and other environmental problems. Just as reproductive rights are also a class issue, climate change and militarism and household debt are also feminist issues. And racial issues.
