To triumph in 2020, Dems need to stop groveling
Kirsten Gillibrand confronted a piece of fried chicken in South Carolina over the weekend. She began to eat it with a fork, realized that others around her were using their hands, asked if she should do likewise and ditched the utensils. Reading the reports of this, you got the sense that she would have sucked it through a very large straw if those were the cues. Anything to conform. Anything to please.
Cory Booker, in Iowa, fielded a question by a reporter representing a foreign news organization. “Puedes hablar español?” he responded, misidentifying the reporter’s accent, according to a video distributed by David Gelles, a CNN producer. The reporter corrected Booker: “No, Swiss radio.” “Swiss!” Booker exulted. “I do not speak Swiss. I cannot even say Swiss cheese in Swiss.”
Memo to Democratic presidential candidates: Stop it. Just stop it. Lose the sycophancy. Reclaim your dignity. Eat chicken however you naturally would. Don’t invent languages — there’s no such tongue as Swiss — just to win points.
It’s good to be relatable, and a little humor, if unforced, goes a long way. But there’s a line between courting and groveling, between reaching out and rolling over. And in this early stage of the 2020 campaign, Gillibrand, Booker and too many other contenders for their party’s presidential nomination may be losing sight of it.
Have they learned nothing from Donald Trump? I’m not suggesting that he’s some shining model and sagacious tutor, but he did go farther in politics than he had any right to, and a few of the reasons are worth noting and maybe even emulating, if only out of pragmatism. One of those is the impression he gave — or maybe I should say the illusion he wove — of not caring too much about what people thought.
A consequential percentage of voters respected that. They recast his obnoxiousness as authenticity, interpreted his infantilism as independence and gave him their support because he didn’t seem to be prostrating himself for it (though, in many senses, he was).
The rapidly growing field of Democratic candidates — Amy Klobuchar joined the gang on Sunday — is packed with impressive talent. But right now it’s also lousy with obsequiousness. The contenders are engaged in a frenzy of contrition for mistakes and insufficiently progressive positions past, and while there’s laudable humility (along with plentiful calculation) in that, it sometimes has a desperate ring.
Social-media posts that are meant to convey accessibility, transparency and unvarnished charm can come across as stagy and needy.
No candidate has had a more successful rollout than that of Kamala Harris, who was terrific in a widely watched CNN town hall. But she got tangled in her statements and then clarifications about her position on Medicare for all.
Most of the Democratic candidates, including her, have rallied behind the Green New Deal, a profoundly progressive resolution with a set of environmental and economic goals so sweeping and idealistic as to be politically fantastical. But many of these candidates’ quickness to embrace it without qualification has as much to do with indulgence as with leadership.
In the context of Trump and the unprincipled Republicans who have enabled him, Democrats’ willingness to search their souls, admit error and think expansively and inclusively is beyond refreshing. But too much self-flagellation and genuflection can look foolish and smack of fakery.