2020 election

Reconciled

Congratulations, Democrats, You are a Political Party

The last 72 hours have been truly extraordinary. Bernie Sanders had somehow become the favored candidate in the Democratic primary, but after Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the race on Monday, moderates coalesced around Joe Biden, whose campaign many had written off. Today the race looks completely different and the betting markets heavily favor Biden. What a turn of events! Here’s my analysis. In most democracies, there are no primaries. Parties pick their standard-bearers in accord with their own criteria, often drawing heavily on electability. The US is unusual in giving so much power to party primaries. Ordinarily, this isn’t a big deal, but it occasionally allows parties to lose control of who they want to nominate. Given how polarized US politics has become, and how much trust in the political system has fallen, however, the primary system has become the main way in which anti-establishment candidates can hope to win political power. Donald Trump did precisely this in 2016. The GOP opposed him, but he was able to parlay his strong support among a minority of primary voters into the nomination. That is a very strange thing in democratic politics – for a populist, anti-establishment candidate to stage a hostile takeover of a political party. It suggests that indeed the GOP is a very weak political party. It is easily swayed and bandied about by special interests, the super rich, and right-wing media. The Democrats, we can now see, are different. My guess is that, behind the scenes, Democratic elites successfully pressured Klobuchar and Buttigieg out of the race because they did not want Sanders to be the nominee for all kinds of reasons. This shows that they aren’t willing to be taken over in the way that the GOP was. In my view, this is a good thing. You want parties to have their own integrity so that they can offer voters stable, distinct policy choices in order for people to be self-governing. It is also usually better for party elites to be able to formulate coherent platforms and ideological principles for similar reasons. I know that, in reality, this ideal often does not hold, but it is a reasonable regulative ideal that many countries approximate rather well, and departures from the ideal seem to make matters worse, not better. Many Democrats are disappointed with Biden, and for all kinds of good reasons. But the overall story of Super Tuesday is a positive one: American democracy may not be ripped to pieces by populist, anti-establishment forces and extreme polarization. Maybe our hatreds and radicalisms will not be the only currents governing public life. So American democracy had a good night. Congratulations to the Democrats for actually being a political party. Maybe Republicans can learn from them.

Reconciled

The Moral Problem with Bloomberg’s Campaign

A few days ago, I made the following comment on Facebook. Bloomberg is single-handedly making me more sympathetic to campaign finance reform. The way he’s gaining support strikes me as dangerous and unfair. The thing about the other billionaires trying to get people in office is that they’re bad at it overall. But maybe some people can be very, very good at it. With luck, Bloomberg collapses after the first debate, but if not, I hope Bernie and Warren go after him hard and don’t stop. My politics are further from Bernie than Bloomberg. But for some reason, I’m rooting for the socialist over the paternalist plutocrat. I’ve been thinking over the weekend why the Bloomberg campaign bothers me so much. I’d like to try to put my finger on the reason. The simplest answer is that Bloomberg is massively violating a fundamental principle of democracy: that people who equal opportunity to contribute to political outcomes, even if that opportunity is miniscule. Bloomberg’s campaign is unfair because Bloomberg’s level of influence vastly exceeds equality. It may be the grossest violation of a kind of principle of politically equal opportunity that we’ve witnessed in modern times. But I’m less worried about equal influence if I feel like support for a candidate at least has some large source of sincere public support. There’s a problem there too, since people often like candidates for terrible reasons. But at least there’s a democratic element: the candidate has real support. Bloomberg seems to be doing something different, something that is in a way less authentic and more manipulative. He’s not really trying to link with voters and build support through shared values. He’s treating people more instrumentally, using money to purchase support, which will probably mean more superficial support. Many people will buy into his campaign because they’re convinced he can beat Trump, and even intimidate him, but nobody really likes Bloomberg, and his candidacy is, accordingly, inauthentic in a way that bothers me. But here’s the deepest issue. There’s something about Bloomberg’s attitude towards ordinary people that is authoritarian. It’s not so much that he has authoritarian policies (though boy does he!), but that he’s an authoritarian and paternalist at heart, and so he doesn’t actually mind using people, treating them like mere votes and not like human beings, and doing so in such a flagrant fashion. Say what you will about Bernie, but he’s not doing that. He’s got a ton of deep support, he’s authentic, and he cares about his voters. Again, I’m no socialist, but I find Bernie’s campaign far more honorable, and far more respectful of his supporters. So that’s why I don’t like Bloomberg’s campaign. It shows a unique kind of disdain for ordinary people. I’m sure he cares about people’s well-being, but not because he cares about most people and sees himself as their equal. They’re really more like, well, value receptacles. They’re just objects to be captured and filled with good things. That’s why I find his campaign dishonorable. Blomberg’s campaign manifests his failure to see others as worthy of equal respect, rather than as patients to be treated and manipulated, moreso than many other candidates.      

KEVIN VALLIER

KEVIN VALLIER

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