HOW CAN THE DEMOCRATS BE AGENTS OF RADICAL CHANGE, BRINGING JUSTICE TO THE DOWNTRODDEN AND DISPOSSESSED, WHEN THEY’VE HELD THE WHITE HOUSE FOR MOST OF THE PAST DECADE?
Here’s the fascinating thing about U.S. politics this cycle, as we’ve seen it displayed at the national conventions of Republicans last week and Democrats this week: These two parties, though now polar opposites in tone, are drawing from the same emotional well, which is a deep and growing popular resentment of elites. Of the two, the Democrats face by far the tougher challenge in making it work.
A speech to their Philadelphia convention Monday by insurgent Bernie Sanders, one part concession and three parts veiled threat (“I’m not going anywhere and Hillary Clinton had better deliver on her promises to me, or else!”) was remarkable for its aggrieved, bitter tone, not so different in some respects from that of Republican nominee Donald Trump.
As Sanders rattled off a list of policy prescriptions that, according to him, the lifelong pragmatic centrist Clinton now supports (including curbed trade agreements, much broader access to public health care and free post-secondary education), it was impossible not to suspect that much of this must have come as news to Clinton herself.
Are we to believe that Sanders, fresh off the apparently Russian-orchestrated email leak that showed senior party officials openly fomenting against him and for his establishment rival, is now the Hillary-whisperer? No. These were his own markers he was laying down, not hers.
And there lies the gaping contradiction the Democrats must somehow resolve this summer and fall, as they seek to make the case for four more years in a climate driven, more than anything else, by dissatisfaction with the status quo. How can they be agents of radical change, bringing justice to the downtrodden, the marginalized and dispossessed, when they’ve held the White House for most of the past decade? Wouldn’t that amount to a revolution against themselves?
Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and first lady Michelle Obama, each of whom also spoke in Philadelphia Monday, offered variations on the apparent answer, which is not rocket science: Run against Trump, because this is so very, very easy.
Had the Grand Old Party put up a candidate who behaves and speaks like, well, a Republican, the Democrats would have a much tougher time of it, goes this line of thinking. With Trump opposite, it’s a matter of spooling up a video of his many incendiary, contradictory, false, xenophobic or unhinged remarks, and letting fly. Clinton need only present as safe, competent and reliable, avoid further leghold traps of the email variety (perhaps these email-loving Boomer Democrats could discover texting at some point), and the victory will be hers.
And that may yet happen. Except, there’s this: What about Sanders’ angry base? Polling data and anecdotal evidence shows there is a constituency in 2016 America — mainly but not only high-school educated, mainly but not only white, mainly but not only male and working class, mainly but not only residing in the northeastern Rust Belt that used to form the backbone of American heavy manufacturing — that crosses party lines. Some are for Sanders, some are for Trump.
Not enough, possibly, will be for status-quo Clinton, unless she uncorks some hitherto unseen ability to connect with laid-off factory workers in Pennsylvania.
Hillary Clinton is above all a technocrat. Bill, the original Bubba, was the good ol’ boy in their partnership, which is why they were so devastatingly effective in the 1990s.
The demographic math is stark: More than 70 per cent of American voters are white. Fewer than 15 per cent are black. Some 17 per cent, crossing racial lines, are Latino. Bill Clinton is reportedly on the warpath to bring white, male, conservative Rust Belters back to Hillary’s Democratic party. Perhaps he’ll be joined in this by the right-of-centre, white and male Kaine.
If so, their efforts will be well timed because, on night one of their confab at least, there was little such bridgebuilding to be seen. Other than Sanders, Rep. Joe Kennedy III was the only white male speaker, and he was only there to introduce Warren.
Although there was much railing against the “rigged system,” and much rhetoric about togetherness and love, there was a paucity of material tuned to the concerns of the lower-middle-class working people to whom Trump is directly appealing. Nor, on night one, did I hear a mention of defeating Islamist terrorism or winning the war against ISIL.
No doubt this was the deliberate offering of a contrast with last week’s bombast and fear-mongering in Cleveland. Yet the security questions need to be answered.
Hillary Clinton is far too experienced and smart not to have placed security and jobs, the perpetual king and queen of American political issues, front and centre in her convention plan.
That is why, on nights two, three and four, including in the nominee’s keynote Thursday, we will likely hear more about both. Specific proposals for the middle class and an aggressive plan to defeat ISIL: Clinton needs these now, to step on Trump’s post-GOP convention bump.