Time to Win it for the American People

It has been a long time coming but now Hillary Clinton is actually, finally the Democratic nominee for president. When I first heard the boogieman charge that she was going to run for president from talk radio blowhards in 2000 I wasn't scared. All of the stupid objections to having a woman as president, of which I won't recount, are just that, stupid. Is she going to be a perfect, wonderful embodiment of liberalism and perfectly represent the party of the people? No, probably not but she is eminently qualified to hold the office and be the Chief Executive of the country. I will vote for her and not hold my nose, and not only because the alternative is so unworthy and unqualified but because we deserve a decent and competent president.

Two coincidences cross in my opinion on the matter. The first concerns Bernie Sanders and the second concerns the Democratic Party. In the book review I just completed a major theme was the corrupting capacity of power and Bernie may have rode this wave a little too long. Chez Pazienza may be a little harsh in his characterization of Sanders:

Maybe Bernie Sanders really is a bitter, entitled crank, who at some point stopped running an eminently moral campaign dedicated to the issues and started simply being drunk on the thrill of being every Millennial's imaginary best friend.

Daniel Allen Butler described the rise of the Mahdi in late nineteenth century as beginning as a noble campaign to cleanse Islam of corruption and throw off foreign rule but ending as corrupt and power mad as the worst abuses he started out criticizing. Having a cause you believe in so passionately can spill over into excess, sometimes you have to step back and ask what you really want and what you really are doing. By past metrics of real left liberal candidates running for the Democratic nomination Bernie did incredibly well, pushing the conversation in the correct direction if we are ever going to straighten out the horrific inequality, insecurity, and poverty the majority of Americans struggle with every day. But through whatever function, the Sanders campaign pushed past that real game change and into quixotic territory.

Which brings me to the second coincidence. I just finished Thomas Frank's Listen Liberal book and after the initial bout of extreme despair have come to see that the exact same problem of succumbing to excess applies to the Democratic Party as well. I was skeptical of Frank's thesis at first, and really felt that now was not the time for a burning magnifying glass to blister and fragment the one adult party left in US politics but yeah, it's true that the professional ethos has taken over official liberalism and left the majority of us behind. So while ultimately unsuccessful in having a millennial course correction of the national Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders did give that insular professional class enough of a shock to maybe loosen them up a bit. It remains to be seen of course, and ultimately we liberals with an eye towards the New Deal ideas have no choice but to stick with the rogue's gallery of professionals now running things. The alternative of enthroning the mob and vulgar talking yam combined with the tea party fanatics ready to burn the whole country down at a moment's notice is not something to contemplate lightly.

So congratulations Secretary Clinton, soon you will be president. Can you do more than fend off the authoritarian reactionaries and give the rest of us a reason to believe in you? I, for one, really hope so. I want President Clinton to be the decent and competent Chief Executive we need. But I also want her to prove Thomas Frank wrong about the calcification of professional liberalism and begin to reclaim the Democrats as the party of the people.