Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders present voters with an interesting quandary for the Democrat primary.
On one hand, Bernie Sanders has been plugging away for close to fifty years, on the inaction of the Democrats (and other liberals) concerning the basic problems faced by the poor and minorities in the USA. Certainly this country has become a melting-pot for the world; more of a melting-pot than other countries, and more able to deal with the changing profile of the population than many other countries. (The UK and certain European countries are struggling with the incoming migrants, while the US has dealt with this problem—more or less gracefully— for a century.) Well, if one of the major characteristics of our population is that it is extremely diverse—this is a fact, not a choice—then we have to face the fact that more than a century of free enterprise has created an economic underclass that is frustrated, and which contains a disproportional number of minorities. And furthermore, this class is unable to deal with certain basic problems: education, health, pollution, discrimination, and a few others. Democrats have nibbled away at the edges of these problems, but not addressed them head-on. Finally, it appears that Bernie has gained enough momentum to actually secure the nomination to be the representative of the Democrat Party.
Elizabeth Warren, in contrast, is a relative newcomer. She is about a decade younger—which is not saying much—but appears to be in better health. She is not as abrasive, and more patient (which women of all sorts have found to be a survival characteristic), and has been frustrated in a different way. She has ideas about how to prevent the large-scale financial system from victimizing the poor, and to prevent people who run the financial establishment from making their millions off the backs of unwary consumers. Poor consumers simply do not have the resources, the networking, the financial support of friends and family, to fight the depredations of predatory lenders, vicious credit card companies, unscrupulous health services, and laws that are not friendly towards the working poor. She has been blocked repeatedly by the financial industry (who rightly see her as viewing their easy profit methods with hostility), and hindered by her male colleagues, simply because men are conditioned to elbow out women without thinking. Bear in mind that single mothers are a rapidly expanding sector of the working poor, which congress is slow to recognize. While the problem of sexual harassment of women is something that society is reluctantly beginning to face, the daily grinding down of poor women and their families is still something that goes under the radar.
Both of these candidates deserve to have a chance at being the nominee of the Democrat Party, for many of the same reasons, and for slightly different reasons in addition. And now it comes down to the electability calculus, which is, this year, particularly difficult to work through!
The problem with being one of the Radicals
We all know that the conservatives (and the media) have brought back this label, to describe those in the Democrat Party whom they consider to have extreme views. Bernie Sanders embraces this label, but insists at the same time that his plans are not too radical. Only his plan to provide Medicare For All is at all radical; everything else he wants to do is common sense. As it is, education up to High School (up to secondary level) is free in the US, though of course there’s nothing to prevent a doting parent from paying to send their child to a private school. Bernie wants to extend free education up to the college level (up to tertiary level). It makes some sense to provide this at government-supported colleges and universities; there would be trouble if private colleges and universities were required to provide free education. Of course this will take money and work. The Upper Middle Class objects to this as requiring too much money (and obviously raising taxes on the rich), but it has the potential for crowding the pool of applicants for good jobs. With easy access to education, the problem of educational elites has to be addressed. In addition to increasing the numbers of qualified people applying for any job, there is the small problem that certain types of occupation are shunned by those with higher education, and those of us who are well educated are keeping an eye on this effect as well. So far none of the candidates are talking very much about it, because it is politically problematic. Even the very poor hate to be working on levees and roads and sewers and landfills. (But someone has to. There, I said it.)
Elizabeth Warren refuses to be labeled a Socialist. Many of her policies protect the poor, and place a greater tax burden on the most wealthy (i.e. The Rich). But this has been done in the US for decades. Making credit-card banks follow laws that prevent them from throwing poor families into bankruptcy is not at all unfair, for instance. Raising taxes to provide so-called ‘Socialized Medicine’, as is done in Canada and the United Kingdom, by no means comes close to making the US a socialist economy.
Thinking about these issues gives people headaches, especially if they’re unused to thinking about difficult problems regularly. Well, after the weekend, some issues will become clearer (for instance: should we give Joe Biden a chance?)
After the South Carolina Primary, I predict that Bernie Sanders will still head the candidates at the polls; Elizabeth Warren will probably be either third or fourth, with Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, and Amy Klobuchar filling in the gaps.
After Super Tuesday, it’s anyone’s guess as to who will be left in the race. (Running for president is such a waste of money, time and energy for most candidates; this is why the choices have been so bad for the Democrats for so long. For Republicans, there’s all those luscious corporate dollars waiting for them. Democrats, too, have their rich friends, but most people know who they are; and Democrats, unlike Republicans, are mildly embarrassed by their rich friends. But this election, Democrats are all fired up. We should be grateful to have so many candidates jumping into the ring, and to have to pick from among so many talented people. (Make no mistake: when politics returns to the usual boring grind, we will dearly wish to have this set of candidates back.)
If Elizabeth Warren survives Super Tuesday, I am inclined to support her. I wish she would quickly turn to supporting the down-ballot races (that is, Democrat candidates for congressional, senate and state and local representative, which are so important, not least to encourage states to work with the federal government to offer new health care plans, for instance). In our part of the world, Democrats are not even running for certain congressional slots, and Republicans of limited ability are running unopposed.
That’s all for now! Nothing more can be said until, well, Wednesday, or Sunday, the earliest.
Relax. Nothing is achieved by worrying. Bear in mind that everyone deserves a compassionate thought, though some people may have sucked all the compassion out of us. Think about all those parents involved in the debacle of faking entrance to exclusive colleges! And think of the poor, spoiled kids, who now have to endure the taunting of unsympathetic classmates. (It is the less-qualified classmates who probably do most of the taunting, but that's probably no big consolation.) As I was telling an old friend recently, the older I get, the more I think of all the terrible things that people do as being forgivable. For the most part.
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