I do not expect Bernie Sanders to be the Democratic nominee, likable as he is.
But Sanders’ candidacy is more important than his prospects, because he has fearlessly identified many of the issues we Americans should be addressing–and many of them are problems that far too few of us are addressing. As a consequence, he has shaken Hillary Clinton out of her typically cautious–some would say calculating–approach, and made her a far better candidate.
In a recent interview with Jimmy Kimmel, of all people, Sanders said this about what he sees as the “job for Democrats:”
“Our job is not just to defeat Republicans, our job is to revitalize American democracy, bring people who have given up on the political system back into the system, and create a government which represents them rather than large campaign donors.”
I have only one quibble with that. The revitalization of American democracy is not just a job for Democrats. It is a goal that rational Republicans, Independents, Libertarians and members of the Green Party (there are some, right?) should share.
You don’t have to agree with every position Bernie Sanders takes, or even most of them, to endorse this one.
People usually use the term “identity politics” to mean blocs of voters who cast their ballots for people with whom they share an identity.
For example, during the last two Presidential elections, opponents of President Obama often attributed his huge advantage among black voters to his skin color. Of course, “they” would vote for one of “their own.”
If that were true, of course, African-Americans would be lining up to support Ben Carson. They clearly aren’t, and a lot of Republicans don’t understand why. The confusion lies in a profound misunderstanding of what we should probably call “communities of interest” rather than “identity politics.”
Most readers of this blog, even those who lived in Indiana at the time, will not remember Joan Gubbins, a particularly unpleasant woman who served in the State Senate in the 1970s. Gubbins was a forerunner of today’s social conservatives–among other things, she opposed the Equal Rights Amendment and memorably campaigned against her opponent in one primary by going door-to-door and explaining that the voter’s choice was between “a good conservative Christian and a damn liberal Jew.”
The Women’s Political Caucus (of which I was a member) endorsed her male opponent, who supported a number of women’s rights measures.
Women’s organizations like the (now defunct) Political Caucus and Emily’s List usually support women candidates–but not those with positions inimical to women’s rights. In the 2008 Presidential race, no self-respecting advocate for women’s equality was persuaded to vote Republican because Sarah Palin was on the ticket.
Latinos support candidates with reasonable positions on immigration and other policies relevant to that community. Whatever Ted Cruz’ ethnicity, he’s not going to get the Latino vote.
Women don’t disproportionately support Hillary Clinton because she’s female; they do so because she has championed women’s issues. (Sorry, Carly. As Sara Palin’s candidacy should have demonstrated, female plumbing isn’t enough.)
In 2016, African-Americans aren’t going to vote for a monumentally unqualified Ben Carson, whose positions suggest that he suffers from something akin to Stockholm Syndrome.
Anyone who thinks that “identity politics” means voting for someone who “looks like me” just doesn’t get it.
Forgive the personal nature of this post. I’m not in a very “political” or “policy” mood right now.
A couple of days ago, a close friend died unexpectedly.
A couple of months before that, my best friend in the world–someone I talked to almost every day for fifty years, someone who shared my life so thoroughly that it’s hard to know who I would be if she hadn’t been part of it–died after a brief battle with cancer.
Even with months to prepare for the inevitable, I couldn’t write about that first death until now, couldn’t talk about it much, couldn’t come to terms with it. (I still haven’t.) The second one was a shock–a single male friend who we had semi-“adopted” into our family, who shared Thanksgivings and birthdays and weddings with our “clan,” and was only 62.
It’s times like these when you confront your own mortality, and wonder once again what it all means. Are there lessons in life’s fragility, and if so, what are they?
Like my best friend, who was a student of philosophy–and like my mother, who wasn’t–I don’t believe in an afterlife. We’re here, and then we’re gone, and to the extent our lives have meaning, it’s meaning we create. So we are responsible for thinking carefully about what it means to be a human being with free will (or something that feels like free will), and about the nature of morality, of good and evil, and our responsibilities to our fellow humans and the planet we share with them.
My friends each left a legacy of kindness. Neither was petty or self-aggrandizing. They both had a passion for justice, and an aversion to the sort of self-righteous judgmentalism that is all too common among less thoughtful and/or reflective people. They both lived full and authentic lives, and they both left their corners of the world better than they found it.
At the end of the day, I suppose that’s really all that anyone can hope for or aspire to.
The size of the holes left in our lives when wonderful, loyal people die is a testament to the value they added to ours. But those holes are really, really painful. We can walk around them, but they can’t be filled.
In a response to a prior post–made in the middle of a somewhat heated discussion generated by that post–a commenter complained that his contributions to the debate had simply been ignored by others, even though they’d been accompanied by links to what he described as “liberal” references.
As regular readers of this blog know, I rarely participate in the conversations triggered by my daily posts/rants. (I do read most of the comments.) There are two reasons for that, one practical and one more-or-less philosophical: the practical reason is that I have a day job, and I can’t afford the additional time thoughtful engagement would take; the “philosophical” reason is that the blog is intended to generate responses and in a very real sense, to allow readers to educate me–which many of you, especially my “regulars” regularly do.
But the complaint was that no one was responding to points made by this particular individual, and that such non-responsiveness–at least in the eye of the commenter–was characteristics of the disinclination of “liberals” to engage with those who disagreed.
To the extent that complaint is justified, I don’t think it’s a consequence of political orientation, conservative or liberal. I think the problem is trolls.
I firmly believe that trolls–and this blog has a couple of persistent ones–want nothing more than to stir the pot. They present themselves as angry and troubled individuals whose goals are limited to insulting and “bomb throwing.” For whatever reason (I’m no psychiatrist) they are uninterested in genuine dialogue, so responding to them is a waste of time.
Given the amount of time they spend spewing, it’s a good guess that they don’t have what the rest of us call “lives.”
I firmly believe that responding to such people is counterproductive; it simply draws otherwise reasonable people into whatever game they are playing.
The problem occurs when people who aren’t trolls, but who may have made their points in fairly antagonistic ways, enter the conversation. Readers lump those folks in with the trolls, assume that they are uninterested in real conversation, and thus don’t take what they perceive to be the bait.
This is precisely why civility is so important in this context. When dissenting opinions are offered in a civil fashion, it invites dialogue and engagement. Civility is especially important online, because online discussion doesn’t allow us to see body language or hear tone of voice–the cues that we get in other contexts that flesh out the sender’s intended message and help to prevent miscommunication. It’s really easy to be misunderstood on line (especially for people like me, who tend to be rather snarky), which is why it’s so important to frame our online communications with care, and to avoid sharing our passions in a manner that comes across as offensive or insulting.
If the perfectly appropriate response to trolls–ignoring them–puts a damper on the exchange of ideas between people genuinely interested in engaging in conversation, it may be understandable, but it’s a shame.
Ah, democracy! Where citizens (okay, at least the ones who bother going to the polls) choose their public servants, after weighing their qualifications for the positions to be filled.
So, I’ll ask an inconvenient question: what does your City Clerk do? How about the auditor? Assessor? Recorder? What about those offices at the state level?
According to the Indiana Code, city clerks perform the following tasks:
(1) Serve as clerk of the city legislative body under IC 36-4-6-9 and maintain custody of its records.
(2) Maintain all records required by law.
(3) Keep the city seal.
(4) As soon as a successor is elected and qualified, deliver to the successor all the records and property of the clerk’s office.
(5) Perform other duties prescribed by law.
(6) Administer oaths when necessary in the discharge of the clerk’s duties, without charging a fee.
(7) Take depositions, without charging a fee.
(8) Take acknowledgement of instruments that are required by statute to be acknowledged, without charging a fee.
(9) Serve as clerk of the city court under IC 33-35-3-2, if the judge of the court does not serve as clerk of the court or appoint a clerk of the court under IC 33-35-3-1.
Among those “other duties prescribed’–at least in Indianapolis, the Clerk hands out and certifies marriage licenses (and can officiate at marriage ceremonies), handles child support payments, serves on the County Election Board and administers elections.
So here’s my question: how much of this did you–my savvier-than-the-average-citizen readers–know?
We could engage in a similar test for a number of other city and state offices. Which raises the question, how many of these positions should we actually be voting for?
I’ll be the first to admit that I have no basis upon which to form an opinion of the relative merits of candidates for Coroner, to pick just one example. Most of us simply vote for the candidates endorsed by the political party we favor (assuming we vote at all); that being the case, wouldn’t we be better served to make the positions appointive?
