Alienation, autonomy, and ideology
Source: Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bernie_Sanders_2015_(1).jpg)
Let’s suppose it’s April 2020, and the New York Times reports that Bernie Sanders has just won enough delegates to clinch the Democratic Party nomination for President. Bernie will face Trump in November for the presidency.
How did he get there? What does a Bernie Sanders victory look like? And who’s a part of a winning Bernie Sanders coalition?
I write a lot in this blog about political issues, and I try to keep individual personalities out of politics as much as possible. If politics is about any specific thing, it’s about collective struggles over things like ownership and control of resources, rights, representation, et al. If you want something even more vague and unhelpful, I could stick with Aristotle and say it’s about the “affairs of the city.”
My point is that it’s not about individual personalities.
But that’s easier said than done. When I’m thinking about what to write in this blog, individual personalities frequently come to mind. In fact, I’ve devoted an entire category to an American political movement organized around an individual personality. Yes, that one.
And so, it turns out I find myself writing about specific people. When is it best to write about specific people? Here are my thoughts.
We hear a lot of grumbling about the so-called ‘liberal bubble’. The idea seems to be that many Democrats live in a certain state of political and social isolation.
The details vary, but we can sketch out certain features of the liberal bubble. It’s supposed to look like this: major urban area or college town, highly educated population, mixed income but higher class standing (i.e., not proletarian), strong cultural amenities, and strongly Democratic at the ballot box.
What are these places like? If they exist, so what? Are they a problem?
Winter’s still here and spring training is barely underway. Let’s face it: most people aren’t paying attention to spring training. Sports writers are getting antsy. Once again, we get the annual complaint that baseball is too boring.
Nonsense. Keep baseball boring.
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Source: Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book.jpg)
Green Book was an OK movie, not a great movie or even a good one. It’s in good company on the list of Oscar Best Picture nominees. You could make an awards case for Roma, but any of the others would’ve been a weak choice. Bohemian Rhapsody and Vice were the worst of the bunch. Neither of the two best movies I saw in 2018 (Sorry to Bother You and A Quiet Place, respectively) made the list.
Grumble, grumble.
I’ve got an upcoming post on the concept of the ‘liberal bubble,’ and what I’ll say here will preview that a bit. A lot of the criticism of Green Book from a particular set, namely highly educated, wealthier, white, ‘woke’ liberals, runs into a sort of bubble issue.
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