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Wednesday, January 13, 2016

I Worry

Will white berniebros provide the layup for white trumpbros to elect their fuhrer?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

As a foreigner can I get it explain to me what the similiarities are apparently between trumpsupporters and sanderssupporters in your opinion. Do not mistake me for a Sanders fan I have my own problems with the guy.

Dale Carrico said...

Most of them would presumably fight like cats and dogs. But their mutual opposition is useful. Bernie Sanders is a fighter against racism and sexism, but there is a decided white male skew in his support that benefits him in the first two primaries, especially New Hampshire. This is doubly conspicuous given that Hillary's support is both less white and less male and so is the Democratic Party as a whole. These issues are being displaced onto media narratives about a shared anti-establishmentarianism in both Trump and Sanders (although Trump populism is white supremacist and Sanders populism is anti-plutocratic so such analyses risk many distortions) and also a fairly phony competition between Clinton and Sanders over who is the most progressive candidate. Given their actual voting records both candidates are comparably progressive. Given his avowed democratic socialism (which I share) Sanders has the more progressive ideals -- but when the question is the pragmatics at arrival through legislation of more progressive outcomes this becomes a much more complex question. I for one think Clinton would be the more effective progressive President following the Obama administration, but I don't think my view is shared by a majority of those who are as far left as I am. I was quite enthusiastic about Sanders getting in the race and educating mainstream Americans on the substance of democratic socialist positions -- but I have been profoundly disappointed that his candidacy has been more of an occasion for ugly mansplaining and celebrations of symbolic over pragmatic politics in the Sanders fandom. I don't think Sanders is electable given my read of American culture which seems to me likely to disdain his curmudgeonly temperament (which I personally like and share) as unpresidential and to fall far war-terror fear-mongering which will declare him a dove with no grasp of the details. Of course, Trump and Cruz are even more loose-talking than Sanders on foreign policy, but Americans don't seem to mind loose talk when it takes on belligerent tonalities. Clinton's command of the details of foreign policy will reassure Americans but her practice will be less bellicose (but still far from my cup of tea) than any of the Republicans likely to beat Sanders on this score. I find this prospect personally terrifying -- almost as bad as realizing what reactionary appointments to the courts would do to this country for the rest of my natural lifetime.