The 2020 Democratic primary is toxic

Every US election since I was old enough to know what elections were, has been billed as ‘the most important election of our time’, and 2020 actually hits the mark. Considering the stakes, it is the most important election of our time, especially for Millennials such as myself, and Generation Z. We have the chance to begin addressing the horrible hand we’ve been dealt in high student loan debt, soaring housing & health care costs, climate change, and others, and to begin the pain-staking task of addressing the long-standing ills facing the entire country. 

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

I’ve long believed that the outcome of the 2020 election will be decided in the primary. The key to Democrats keeping the House, winning the Senate and presidency is high voter turnout, and the Democrats must learn from 2016 by selecting a candidate that gets the base (young people, people of color, especially black women) excited about voting, not merely rely on their candidate not being Mr.Trump. And I’ll add, not trying to ‘win back’ white voters who switched from Obama to Trump in 2016, nor former Republican ‘Never Trumpers’ who do not understand (or want to) the dire straits this country is in. Trump or no Trump, this country is in need of deep, systemic change instead of a nominal modification to the status quo.

However I find that paying consistent, daily attention to the primaries mentally and emotionally exhausting, taxing, and boring. And I’ve refrained from regularly discussing the primary candidates on social media or in real life. That’s not to say I don’t know what’s going on, which candidates I’m leaning towards, or which candidates’ policies I like. But I’m not following the Democratic primary as I have in previous cycles. I’m not on tinder-hooks curiously following what every candidate says. I don’t watch the debates live, if at all, and not in their entirety.

One reason is mainstream media coverage of the candidates. They’re making the same mistakes that they did in 2016. White, moderate male candidates like Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and until he dropped out, Beto O’Rourke, are dubbed as the face or future of the party, are given the most frequent and most positive coverage compared to candidates of color and/or women. For candidates of color, those who question white candidates on race, as Senator Kamala Harris and Julian Castro did of Biden during debates are considered ‘too aggressive.’ Senator Bernie Sanders, a white male candidate but not a moderate, does not receive the quantity or quality of coverage that he should given his level of support ranking him in the top tier of candidates. 

The narrative of black support follows that we universally support Biden, even though anecdotal evidence shows that black Millennials are more or less torn between Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris. Which brings me to the exclusion of Millennials generally from polls and surveys, which tend to focus on Baby Boomers. Even non-mainstream journalists on Twitter do this, despite Millennials being the largest voting block, Pew reports showing turnout for Millennials/X-ers/Gen Z surpassing that of the Boomers in 2018, and in 2016. The mainstream news media is not providing a truthful picture of the 2020 race.

Another reason I’m not paying attention to the Democratic primary is because of the length of the election cycle. I’m quite taken with the British election happening on December 12, simply because its happening so quickly—the minimum amount of time for an election in the United Kingdom is five weeks. That’s five weeks for candidates to get their act together, five weeks for political parties to give the public a reason to vote for them, and only five weeks of incessant media coverage to the exclusion of everything else. In the US, media coverage of an election cycle begins as soon as the previous one is over. Considering the multitude of issues that deserve coverage—climate change, fears of a global recession, anti-government protests sparking up all over the world, and others, such prolonged media coverage is superfluous to the point of exhaustion.

The third reason, is the prevalent toxicity in social media discussions about the candidates. Many voters who’ve already made their decision display a deep antipathy for other candidates and their supporters that surely will not end when only one candidate is left standing. Bernie supporters criticize Warren as a ‘fake progressive.’ Some African-American supporters of Kamala Harris question why a black person would support any other candidate aside from her. Black voters who are more critical of her question her blackness on a scale that Barack Obama was not subject to in 2008. A dislike for Buttigieg because of his age, white maleness or even his policies is dubbed as being anti-LGBTQ, especially from the black community. 

Former president Barack Obama has waded into the primary, cautioning the left that bold ideas “have to be rooted in reality” and that “the average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system to remake it.” Considering roughly half of eligible Americans consistently do not vote in elections, I doubt that. If anything, Mr. Trump’s election demonstrated that faith in the system is dangerously low and voters want a candidate who pledges to disrupt the status quo. The desire to blow up the system is why voters were drawn to Mr Trump, it’s why voters are drawn to Bernie Sanders and why Sanders voters either voted for Mr Trump or didn’t vote at all in 2016, after Bernie lost the Democratic primary. The dividing line is what kind of system voters want their candidate to embrace.

Image by Simaah from Pixabay

Other reasons I’m not paying attention to the primary are that it’s too long until the first votes are cast, there are too many candidates running and in the meantime too many other more immediate issues to focus on. Plus, winning the presidency is one thing but who controls the Senate is key. A Democratic president will not be able to do anything of consequence without Senate support, and no the Republicans will not experience ‘enlightenment’ and work with the Democrats should Mr. Trump be out of the Oval Office come January 2021.

American election cycles are too long to be covered so intensely, polls are given too much credence and the level of fear and irrationality among some voters make discussing the candidates more taxing than its worth. As the Iowa Caucus and Super Tuesday get closer this will change but until then I’ll keep my attention on the Democratic primary at minimum, for my own sanity.

What Brexit portends for the US Part Two–Revised 11/10/19

This is the second post in a series I will be doing on Brexit—Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Halloween was last week, on the same day as Brex—oh wait. Right. Brexit did not happen last week. Nor will Brexit be happening this year. Brexit has been officially delayed until January 31, 2020 and in the meantime a general election will be held on December 12, 2019. This is the third general election in four years, in a country that normally has general elections every 5 years. Certainly, a sign of political chaos.

In short, the way we got here was Britain’s prime minister Boris Johnson needed to pass a Brexit agreement through parliament by October 19, 2019 or the Benn Act would require him to ask the European Union for an extension until January 31, 2020. October 19 came, and parliament never voted on PM Johnson’s deal (it likely wouldn’t have passed anyway), but did agree to the Letwin amendment, as an ‘insurance policy’ to prevent a no-deal Brexit. Prime Minister Johnson reluctantly asked the EU for an extension, which briefly hedged but granted it, and even waited a bit to make it official, to give Britain more time to figure out what it’s going to do. 

In the meantime, PM Johnson was able to clear the first hurdle for passing his withdrawal agreement, but parliament rejected his attempt to fast-track it. Now the battle over Brexit will be fought on the front many observers ultimately believed it would be—in a general election. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn calls it a “once-in-a-generation chance to transform our country”, aims to position Labour as the true ‘party of the people’, and promises to resolve Brexit within 6 months if he’s elected prime minister in a second referendum with ‘Remain’ as an option. The Liberal Democrats still want to stop Brexit, the Tories and Brexit party want Brexit over and done with.

Things are going pretty much how I thought they would. I never thought Britain would leave the EU on October 31, and I never thought PM Johnson would be able to get a plan through parliament by October 19. There’s too much division and opposition, even in his own party. And despite polls giving the Tory party an edge, Labour can turn it around if it forms a unified cohesive message about Brexit. But already there’s fighting between Labour and the Liberal Democrats which some fear helps the Tories. As a side note, this is very similar to conflict between centrist Democrats or Never Trumper Republicans, and more left-wing Democrats. An inability to form a cohesive consensus helps the Right, which can.

However there are no coalitions in American politics, and it’s very likely the winning party on December 12 will not be able to govern without a coalition, so the Brexit party, Liberal Democrats, Scottish National Party and others will be critical whether Labour or the Tories come out on top.

Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon is preparing to make another bid for Scotland’s independence. Scots voted to remain in the EU and arguably it was one of the reasons they voted to remain the United Kingdom in 2014. PM Johnson has ruled out granting another Scottish referendum, Labour says it wouldn’t stop Scotland from taking its future into its own hands, and an MP from the Liberal Democrats says Labour can’t be trusted to preserve the Union. Clearly what happens on December 12 will be fateful day for Britain’s relationship with Europe, and its relationship with itself.

But when it comes to Brexit, Britain needs to make up its mind what it’s going to do. The EU has been very patient as Westminster sorts this out and nearly 3 and a half years after the referendum, they’re still in a holding pattern. Brexit will be painful whenever it happens, however it happens, and the EU’s desire to get it over with is understandable. It’s a breakup you know is coming, that you know will be painful, but you want it done so you can move on. The anticipation is unbearable. France is getting frustrated.

On the other hand, I can understand why Britons are so divided over their biggest issue since World War II. Especially when you consider how and why the EU started to begin with. The EU’s mantra is “united in diversity” and was intended to bring Europe together after World War II. After centuries of competing nationalisms culminating in two mass conflicts, Europe realized it could not sustain a third such conflict. It began in 1950 with France and Germany, two bitter rivals, forming the European Coal and Steel Community, then the European Economic Community (EEC), then the European Union. The single (common) market was created along with the European Parliament and the Schengen agreements after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which allows travel between EU states without passport checks.

But Britain’s relationship with the EU has always been ambiguous and uneasy. It was one of the last major European powers to join what was then the EEC, in 1973. And it had a referendum on its membership two years after that. Britain’s history with its near neighbors has for millennia been a charged one. With France especially rivalrous. Even after two world wars, when they were allies. Britain attempted to join the EEC in 1963 and 1967 but was rejected by France’s president Charles de Gaulle. The French leader believed Britain’s economy was incompatible with that of the EEC, and that the UK needed a transformation. De Gaulle believed British membership could mean the break-up of the EEC. De Gaulle lost power in 1969 and died the next year.

Europe’s economic path was murky after World War II. Germany realized its economic dream of being a leading industrial power in western Europe lie in collaboration with France and other economic partners. Britain and France clung to their imperial colonies. While France abandoned that approach, Britain did not, and was wary of facing economic competition in a common European market.

But interdependence and greater integration was and is a key part of the European single market, which means free movement of goods, services, money and people, and one of the most significant drivers of Brexit is for Britain to have more control over who comes to the island nation. The problem, many point out is it’s not 1914 or 1940. Britain is ‘a small island in a big world’ and needs to be interconnected with the rest of Europe to be competitive. The idea that Britain would be better off negotiating trade agreements on its own instead of part of a 27-member bloc is nonsensical. Britain’s economy has already suffered and Brexit hasn’t happened yet.

On the politics side, Britain leaving the EU signals a possible resurgence of the far-right nationalist politics that the supranational organization was intended to prevent. There was talk of a Frexit by France, and concerns others would follow suit. But that went away when Britain’s dysfunction set in. While European elections earlier this year showed that far-right nationalism isn’t representative of the majority of Europeans, Europe itself is politically fractured. An increase in migrants coming from the Middle East and North Africa, and the global financial crash of 2007-08 reveal an intolerance to globalization, in a new age of multipolarity and rising economic powers such as China. The only way for Britain and Europe to stay competitive is to be global, and accept what comes with it. Britain struggled to compete economically as Europe’s economies integrated, and Britain will not be able to compete now, should they leave the EU.

After the 2016 referendum many pointed out the irony that after hundreds of years of colonialism and imperialism—taking advantage of other countries, Britain now decides it wants to be left alone. Europe in general has a brutal history of colonialism, imperialism, and its policies in the more recent past have left people but no choice but to come to the West. Britain, like continental Europe, needs immigrants to come and work and live. This yearning for cultural purity, a fear of foreigners, including other Europeans will be Britain’s undoing.

The election that will happen on December 12, 2019, like the U.S. election on November 3, 2020 will be consequential for generations and decades to come—the final choice between reality and progress, or illusion and regression.