What it means to be a progressive, and why we occasionally have gotten carried away in this election
After the word “progressive” was thrown around so much in last night’s debate that one funny tweeter suggested that GEICO should sue MSNBC for equal time violations, I thought I’d take some time to talk about my own journey as a progressive, and why this election has been so exciting for me with the candidacy of Bernie Sanders.
Similarly to most people, I initially got my political views from my family; though my father was a mostly apolitical small business owner that tended to lean conservative if asked about it, my mom has always been a vocal liberal.
Watching the 1992 election as a 6-year-old, Bill Clinton just seemed to make sense, and he did again in 1996. Like many others, Al Gore seemed just too boring, and I vigorously cheered for Bill Bradley to defeat him, not realizing just how difficult this would be. Of course, I also didn’t realize at the time how much further to the left Gore was than Clinton, especially on key issues like global warming (it’s amazing how prescient he was on this as I later discovered when reading his 1992 book Earth in the Balance, which laid out many key actions that needed to be taken, only to be stymied by Bill Clinton).
There was a moderately strong Ralph Nader for President at my high school in 2000, and I eagerly got on board, more as a sign of solidarity with his ideas, while realizing that he did not have a chance. Like so many others, I of course underestimated the spoiler threat that he posed, and the rest his history, as Bush went on to defeat Gore by just 537 votes in Florida (though to suggest that Nader is solely to blame for Bush’s defeat ignores a handful of other factors, such as the felonious purge of voters by the highly partisan Florida Secretary of State at the time, Gore’s refusal to embrace the impeached-yet-still-popular President Clinton in his campaign, Gore’s general lack of appeal, and his even less appealing running mate, and a generally well-run campaign by George Bush, back when Karl Rove was still a political genius, rather than the unhinged pundit he later became).
Of course, my flirtation with the Green Party didn’t totally end there, especially as it wasn’t until the 2003 Iraq War that I realized the consequences of electing Bush over Gore. Before she became an annoying perennial third-party presidential candidate, Dr. Jill Stein ran for governor in 2002 in Massachusetts, against eventual governor and presidential candidate Republican Mitt Romney, then-treasurer Democrat Shannon O’Brien, a crazy gun-fanatic libertarian candidate, and an even crazier fathers’ rights advocate independent candidate. Stein was an intelligent breath of fresh air that presented a compelling alternative to the two major-party candidates. Of course, my hopes were soon crushed when she placed in the low single digits on election night (thankfully, her vote total was less than Romney’s margin of victory, and I didn’t have to feel bad about voting for a spoiler candidate). While one would never know it from his 2012 (or 2008) presidential campaign, Romney ended up being a not terrible governor of Massachusetts, including making Massachusetts the first state in the country to pass universal healthcare. Of course, his vitriolic statements after Massachusetts became the first state in the country to legalize same-sex marriage still remain a black mark on his legacy, and I am not so deluded that I don’t think Shannon O’Brien still would have been a better governor.
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was deeply upsetting to me, and those feelings carried over into the following year’s Democratic presidential primary. But unlike many other liberals, I was suspicious of Governor Howard Dean, as he had not been in Congress when the vote on the Iraq War was taken, and more saw him as an establishment opportunist looking to take advantage of liberal anger, rather than someone I could trust (and while I am thankful for his excellent work as chairman of the DNC and his 50-state strategy which helped elect so many Democrats and lead to progressive gains, his recent acceptance of a position as a lobbyist with the healthcare industry has confirmed many of my suspicions.
Instead, I went with Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who had actually been in Congress and voted against the Iraq War (unsuccessfully labeling himself as the only candidate to have voted against the Iraq War), the PATRIOT Act and a number of other destructive pieces of legislation. His February 2004 speech “A Prayer for America” deeply resonated with me on a number of key issues: non-interventionism, respect for international law, respect for civil liberties, universal healthcare, reduction of poverty, an end to the military-industrial complex, and a number of other key issues. I got out and campaigned for him when I could, and even donated $60 to his campaign, a substantial amount for a high school senior working a limited part-time job.
Unfortunately, unlike Dean (and Sanders), Kucinich has never been the most charismatic or inspiring person. And unlike Sanders, a fellow former mayor who is generally regarded as having improved Burlington significantly, Kucinich’s tenure as mayor of Cleveland was mixed at best and disasterous at worst, depending on whom you ask (under his tenure, Cleveland became the first municipal city to default on its debts, though Kucinich claims, with some support, that his refusal to sell off the city’s public utilities prevented an even worse fate).
I hoped that as the campaign went on and other candidates dropped out, that voters would move to Kucinich, but this never did happen. Though I of course wanted Kerry to win over Bush in the general election, his vote for the Iraq War made it too hard for me to actively campaign for him.
Fast forward four years (or really two), when Barack Obama burst onto the scene. Like everyone else, I of course recognized his tremendous gifts as a speaker, but also had reservations about his lack of experience, and with that, lack of a voting record — it was a lot easier to believe someone was against the Iraq War when they had cast a vote against it, rather than just claimed several years later that they opposed it. His lack of support for same-sex marriage, while still politically popular at the time, was also concerning to me, having seen firsthand that contrary to popular belief, the sky did not fall when Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage, nor did it destroy the sanctity of my parents’ marriage, nor did it have any of the other disasterous effects we heard about.
I continued to support Kucinich, though unlike 2004, I realized from the start that he never had a chance a more exciting (as compared to Kerry) candidate like Obama and did so more out of principle. Again, I of course hoped that Obama would defeat McCain in the general election in 2008, but could not get myself to campaign for him, instead focusing my efforts as a new California resident on getting voters to oppose Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, until later overturned by the Supreme Court.
In 2012, I was able to bring myself to vote for Obama over Romney, mostly because I admired his public support for same-sex marriage (even if initiated by Biden), as well as the fact that the country was a little better off than before. I even held a sign and donated a little bit of money, despite still questioning his progressive beliefs, as his healthcare overhaul, while still a significant step forward, was not the single-payer approach that I favored, and also continued to have concerns about civil liberties.
In the years following, Elizabeth Warren began to emerge as a new voice for progressives across the country, finally bringing national attention to so many of the things we had been yelling about for so long. Like so many others, I was excited about a potential run for president, being ready to work full-time on her campaign, and finally have a candidate whom I not only believed in, but also had a realistic shot at winning.
She continued to deny that she was interested in running, though I didn’t read much into this, considering that this is standard practice for any candidate who does actually run. But with each denial, reality started to sink in more and more. During this whole time, Bernie Sanders had continued to mention his interest in running, of course mentioning that he would see no need to jump in the race if someone with similar ideas (like Warren) were to get in.
After it essentially became official in everything but name only that Warren would not run, Bernie jumped in. Being the political junkie I am, I was actually already somewhat familiar with him, having bought his book “Outsider in the House” many years earlier, and even attending a mostly speech he gave at a small church in San Francisco.
Of course, he instantly had my support, but I saw this has a redux of Kucinich 2004, a passionate progressive candidate who was just a little goofy and couldn’t connect with voters running against a very powerful establishment candidate. I knew hat out of respect to my progressive beliefs, I would get behind his candidacy, but knew that there was an old disheveled white guy from Vermont had any chance at knocking off Hillary Clinton.
Like others, my most biggest hope for his candidacy was not that he would win, but rather start a national dialogue on the issues that progressives had considered important for so long, but always were silenced by Bill Clinton-era centrists. I was a little more encouraged when he started hiring a few people for his campaign with actual experience winning elections, but still remained pessimistic.
I was out of the country for most of May and June in 2015 and didn’t follow the political news too closely. Sanders claims that the first time he knew his campaign was on to something was a May 26 rally in Minnesota, but for me, it was his rally of almost 10,000 people in Wisconsin on July 1.
I couldn’t believe the headlines. Something wasn’t right. Was it actually the case that a candidate I supported had significant support? Was I backing a candidate who actually had a chance at winning a primary election, unlike all of the losers I had supported before? Was it really the case that many others were warming up to the ideas that I had that had been considered out of the mainstream for so many years.
As the next few months showed, the answer was unequivocally “Yes,” as 10,000 would pale in comparison to the number of his attendees at later rallies in cities like Boston and Portland, the former of which I volunteered at.
Instead of being the guy on Facebook who was telling his friends how their candidate wasn’t liberal enough, I was liking and sharing my friends posts that were supporting my candidate.
Of course, at the time, I was fully aware that attendees at a rally and number of votes did not always correlate, especially given the apathetic voter turnout in our country among young people, most of whom comprised Sanders’ support. But having seen him nearly tie Clinton in Iowa, and looking like he will defeat her in New Hampshire, I’ve realized that there is a chance, even if I accept that Clinton still remains a heavy favorite.
But that’s not the point. Rather, for the first time in my life, there is a candidate running for president who not only meets my very stringent ideological progressive purity standards (anti-war, pro-civil liberties, supports single-payer healthcare, prioritizes reducing income inequality, pro-choice, opposes privatizing prisons, etc.), but actually has a small chance at winning.
And I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. And frankly, it makes me excited. And passionate. I’ve never felt this way about a presidential candidate before. Now, passion is no excuse for insults, putdowns, or not checking facts before making a statement. And to his credit, Bernie and his campaign have said as much, in response to some vicious attacks that have surfaced on various social media sites. And at times, I may have gotten carried away.
But if I did, it wasn’t because I think Hillary Clinton is an evil human being, or that I don’t want a woman as president, or that I’m a straight white male that most closely identifies with other straight white males (had Kucinich not run in 2004, I would have been more than happy to jump on the extremely short-lived Carol Moseley Braun bandwagon). Though I’m sure if you look hard enough, you can find a few Bernie supporters supporting him for those deeply flawed reasons. However, if there was one upside to Martin O’Malley’s candidacy, it was to show that support for Bernie is not being derived from anti-Clinton sentiment, as much as it is pro-Sanders sentiment.
Not all Sanders supporters have had the same frustration with the political system that I have, never having been able to support a winning candidate in a Democratic primary. While I was out supporting Ralph Nader in 2000, the (now) 18-year-old supporters of Sanders were in diapers. Quite a few of them are more moderate than I am and are supporting him despite his ideological positions, rather than because of his ideological positions, as I am.
But for most of his supporters, their excitement and passion for his candidacy comes from a long-seated frustration of having to chose between an “electable” candidate and a candidate we agree with. So to those who disagree with us, please continue to call us out when we step over the line, as we have. Just understand where we’re coming from.