In the summer of 2012, as the Obama and Romney campaigns were coming to a head, Gary Wills, Professor Emeritus of History at Northwestern University, wrote a clear-headed response to any who were disappointed with Obama for “failing to advance the progressive agenda” as far as his campaign of “hope” and “change” may have led his constituents to believe. In an article titled “The Curse of Political Purity,” Wills cautioned against political disillusionment, and reminds us that, in a two-party system, we should be wary of “the independent... who are too good to stoop toward the “lesser evil” of politics… [and] naively assume that if they just bring down the current system, or one part of it that has disappointed them, they can build a new and better thing of beauty out of the ruins…”
There is a certain attractive boldness to the notion of an independent candidate, embodying the desire to eschew all constraints and preexisting institutional norms and “trailblaze” towards a new, “pure” political reality. Yet the audacity of the notion belies its plausibility: no, the American political institution cannot be rebuilt from the ground up by a candidate who is reluctant to affiliate with it. Those who are voting for Sen. Bernie Sanders because they believe that in rejecting the norms of conventional candidate behavior he will usher in in a new political reality bereft of inefficiency or systemic pitfalls should step away from social media and engage with the world at large. In the real world, as a good friend of mine put it, the “responsibilities of the [President’s] job… require an engagement with the power structures that… liberals just want to caps-lock away.” And by “caps-lock away,” she meant “decry in a throaty Brooklyn accent while raising an indignant, crooked finger.”
This is not an attack on Sanders in particular. It is a call to consider the reasons for which we vote for a candidate. Political hardheadedness and a myopic focus on “big money” are characteristics of a successful leader of a concerted campaign for a universal living wage, or for tax reform: they do not a commander-in-chief make. Can Sanders moderate his demands — and his rhetoric — in the face of a resistant Republican Congress? How will he fare in managing America’s various interests and interventions abroad, which require an experienced and delicate hand? Will he be able to engage with existing power structures, so that he can change them as is necessary?
The questions above should be asked of all candidates. Don’t get me wrong: the candor and anger with which Sanders tackles the American political rat race — where more money is influence and, by extension, policy — is admirable and tenacious, but it’s not novel. In the six years since Citizens United, in which period SpeechNow and McCutcheon have further reduced constraints on considerable and intransparent political support, leaders across the political spectrum have decried the increase of “dark money” in political campaigns. They are making efforts to reduce the correlation between donation size and political sway. In the most recent Democratic debate in New Hampshire, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she aims to reverse Citizens United (although, since it came after a jab at Sanders, her voice was drowned out by boos). Yet political disaffection among voters — particularly the “millennial generation,” born between 1980 and 1997 — has reached peak levels: between 2007 and 2014, the number of millennials self-identifying as independents rose from 40 to 50 percent, underscoring a growing trend away from institutional affiliation, a yearning for a “third way” impossible in the American two-party system. At this point, our generation doesn’t want mere reform: in a 2015 poll, 46 percent of Americans thought that “the system for funding political campaigns has so much wrong with it that we need to completely rebuild it.” We want to “Bern” down the establishment, so to speak, and start fresh, with Kerouac-like vigor. This desire is fierce but, to my great dismay, not feasible.
We are not electing an autocrat who , with his cadre of enthusiastic, blue-shirted supporters, will usher a new age of democratic socialism and bring a universal living wage, safer bike lanes and a sense of community into the economically riven, unhealthy (environmentally, physically) and isolated country of ours. In many ways, I wish we were.
Last August, I wrote about how I, too, was unsatisfied with the “evolution” of political policies, and how refreshing it was to have candidates that unflinchingly stood behind a consistent campaign.Yet as 2015 became 2016, and Sanders began to accrue significant support, I was taken aback by the vitriol I saw my peers direct at Sanders-doubters. It was not an anger stemming from political disagreement but one rooted in wholesale political disillusionment, wherein opposition to Sanders represented not a different perspective on policy but an implicit endorsement of the existing political establishment, to which many see Sanders as antithetical. “The independent” is a farce: Sanders, if elected, will run on a Democratic ticket and rely on the Democratic constituency. He will need to be in many respects the embodiment of its desires and goals. And, what’s more, he will need to respectfully and tactfully engage with political, social and economic structures that he pillories. As a liberal gadfly, Sanders was necessary. As a candidate for president, his fervor is insufficient to mark his viability.
Tamar Ziff is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at t.ziff@cavalierdaily.com.
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