Where We Are before Super Tuesday

For brief descriptions of and links to recent posts, click here. For an inverse-chronological list with links to all posts after January 23, 2017, click here. For a subject-matter index to posts before that date, click here.

[Note to Readers: The following post has been revised to reflect Amy Klobuchar’s reported decision, as of mid-morning Monday 3/2, to drop out of the race and endorse Joe Biden. It has also been revised to correct an error: Super Tuesday will account for only about a third of the Democratic delegates, not one-half as previously and erroneously stated here. I regret the error.]

In General
Buttigieg
The Progressive/Moderate Divide
Voting Your Heart
Resolving to Support the Winner(s)

In General. They say the past is prelude. If that’s true in general, it’s truer for the Democratic primaries. The four “primaries” so far—two of which were actually caucuses, unrepresentative in both demographics and process—just aren’t much like the states to come, let alone the nation as a whole. Iowa and New Hampshire are too white; Nevada’s a unique state even in the West; and South Carolina is about as Deep South as you can get.

So forget about what you thought you “knew” or “learned” so far. It’ll all be history in 48 hours, when states that pick about a third of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention will have had their say. Patience is hard, but realism is essential to beating Trump.

Buttigieg. Speaking of realism, let’s say a few words about Pete Buttigieg. In my view, he’s the clearest-eyed realist in the entire Democratic field. Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe it’s his obviously superior intelligence. Maybe it’s his military service. Maybe it’s his 2.5 years with McKinsey consulting, which let him peek into the belly of the beast—the mammoth business organizations that now dominate this nation. Maybe it’s all of the above.

Whatever it is, “Mayor Pete” is no idle dreamer. He quit because he couldn’t see a realistic path to victory. So he saved himself wasted effort, his supporters money that could go to down-ballot candidates and causes, and his party a lot of useless thrashing around. Now our nation’s hope to take advantage of his considerable talents rests on him ending up in the Cabinet.

He’d make a perfect Secretary of Defense. His intelligence and articulation are outstanding. He’s served, but he’s not been so immersed in military culture that he can’t think like a civilian. His education is humanistic and quantitative, both impressively so. And with his superior intelligence and McKinsey experience, no one is going to pull the wool over his eyes. We need someone with his smarts and perspective, and his youth, in charge of our vast military-industrial complex. After all, it’s our youth who fight our wars.

The Progressive/Moderate Divide. The most important decision we hope Super Tuesday will help us make is along the progressive/moderate divide. There are two schools of thought on the coming general election. One holds that only a more moderate candidate, like Biden or Bloomberg, can attract swing voters, especially in key states, to beat Trump. The other holds that only a true progressive, like Sanders or Warren, can excite the enthusiasm needed to bring millions of new voters to the polls and begin a new progressive era, after two generations of relentless rightward slouch since Reagan.

This country today is nothing like the one I was born into, just about a month after VE Day, in June 1945. It’s far more selfish, corrupt, stupid, and self-righteous. It’s far less humble, realistic, and reliant on people who actually know what they’re doing. And, it seems, both our people and our leaders no longer have the ability to assess these vital qualities. Witness Anthony Fauci, the co-discover of HIV, the AIDS virus, being ordered to let Mike Pence vet his every public utterance. Over 40% of us have put their trust in a carnival barker and con-man who thinks “expertise” is something you get by watching Twitter and cable news.

Good luck with that in fighting a pandemic! Covid-19 may be Trump’s undoing, as well as that of tens of thousands of us. Maybe we need to cull the herd.

Voting your Heart. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no scientific or rational basis for deciding which of the two leading views of electoral strategy (if either) is right. There are too many variables. Anyway, Trump’s margins of victory in the key states in 2016 are below the margin of error in polling, so most polls are useless. Finally, unforeseen and unforeseeable factors are complete wild cards, including the spread of Covid-19, the collapse of our globalized economy that might result, and further revelations about (or meltdowns of) Trump, including his tax returns.

So trying to predict who is more “electable” is a fool’s errand. Basic politics, not to mention common sense, advises us that each voter knows his or her own heart better than his neighbors’, let alone the whole nation’s.

So rather than trying to outdo the pundits, who utterly failed to predict Trump‘s 2016 victory, and rather than trying to guess the unknowable, each voter should probe his or her own heart and vote his or her conscience. The sum total of those choices will tell us, better than any abstract cogitation or speculation, where the nation’s heart really is. Elections, after all, are the best polls of all, and Super Tuesday will “survey” about one-third of the Democratic electorate.

Resolving to Support the Winner(s). Whatever the result—which may still be indecisive—every Dem and every true small-d democrat should resolve right now to support the winner(s). For this is it, my friends; this is our last chance. If Trump wins a second term, our democracy will be history. Like ancient Rome’s, it’ll slip irrevocably into empire.

The flame of democracy may flicker for a while in smaller, less powerful nations, like Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand. Maybe France and Germany will keep it alive. Maybe India will. But it’s equally likely that the flame will gutter and die, as it did for a millennium after Rome fell.

So if you prefer democracy and want to save it in the United States, you have to support the Democratic nominee with your vote, your money, your time, your care and your shoe leather. There will be no second chance.

By mid-morning Wednesday, we will know what must be done. The field will be narrower, if not completely clear. The leading candidate(s) will not be perfect. None ever is. But she, he or they will be the only flawed vessels fit to carry the hopes and dreams of a once democratic people, now in steep decline.

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