Alienation, autonomy, and ideology
About a month ago, I wrote a post arguing only 8 people can still win the Democratic nomination.
Only?! For such a late date, 8 was a lot! By this point in 2016, it was down to (probably) Hillary Clinton or (very unlikely) Bernie Sanders. And the Iowa Caucus traditionally winnows the field even further. Did it do so this time? How about New Hampshire?
The early states provided some mess and some clarity. And so, I’ll ask: who can still win the Democratic nomination?
After the 2004 US election, pundits – and college students like myself – went looking for answers. How could Americans re-elect a buffoonish warmonger like George W. Bush? Over the course of a decade, this search guided me from pundit-generated pablum like ‘NASCAR Dad‘ to the philosophically compelling ‘looping effects of human kinds’, as Ian Hacking put it. Let’s trace that journey.
What struck me about the punditry is their attribution of an ordinary event – the re-election of a president – to hidden, mysterious forces. Who were these NASCAR Dads riding to Dubya’s rescue? As it happens, they’re no one new. Lifting up the hood reveals the same white, mostly male, non-college educated voters who elected Reagan in 1980 and Trump in 2016. They vote Republican in every election. ‘NASCAR Dad’ is only a seemingly fresh take on an old story, loaded this time with cultural references.
But I drew lessons from getting burned by bad punditry and bad political science. Through works like ‘Making Up People‘ and The Social Construction of What?, I found philosophers doing great work on classifications of people and how people react – the ‘looping effects’ of my title! And so, I’ll start there. What are ‘looping effects’, and how do they apply to the term ‘bisexual’? Does it mean people aren’t really bisexual, just as people aren’t really NASCAR Dads? Or are NASCAR Dads real after all? Is there some ‘authentic self’ prior to how we’re grouped?
Contrary to even the safest predictions, there was no winner on the night of the Iowa Caucus. Oh, there was a winner. The next day. In fact, Iowa was so generous it gave us two potential winners: Bernie Sanders in the popular vote and Pete Buttigieg in the delegate count. Or maybe Bernie in both. We’ll see. But the entire Iowa Caucus fiasco blunted its impact.
Let’s take a look at how the Iowa Caucus will impact the next steps.
There are many reasons to love Iowa: corn, bacon, cold winters, lovely people. One of my favorite reasons is the New Pioneer Food Co-op. Oh, and we get to vote first. Yes, that last one is controversial, causing much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Much of it justified. But I’m not here to discuss fairness in the nomination process. I’ve already done that. Today, we Iowans vote (actually, caucus). I’m voting for Bernie Sanders. When your time comes, I think you should, too.
Here’s why.
Last July, a Silent Generation Vermont senator from Brooklyn met with a Millennial Bronx rapper. In a Detroit nail salon, Bernie Sanders and Cardi B talked about a lot of issues. But the conversation hinged on young people, the issues they face, and how they can get involved in electoral politics.
In his 2016 run for president, Sanders earned his reputation as the candidate of young people. It was that election where Cardi B first noticed Sanders, instructing listeners to ‘vote for Daddy Bernie, bitch.’ From the middle of the country to the coasts, Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton again and again among voters under 40. And he’s earning that reputation again in the 2020 cycle. In the most recent polling, Sanders leads young voters by 17 (HarrisX/The Hill), 21 (YouGov/Economist), and 21 (Quinnipiac) points. When young people vote, Bernie Sanders wins. And more broadly, when young people vote, social democracy wins. So, why didn’t Bernie win in 2016? And why is he still running a bit behind Joe Biden in 2020?
Let’s think about this by looking at the Iowa problem.
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