Live. Die. Repeat: The endless litigation of the 2016 Election
If you spent any time in the politics part of Twitter in the last two years, you’ve likely witnessed the endless relitigation of the 2016…
If you spent any time in the politics part of Twitter in the last two years, you’ve likely witnessed the endless relitigation of the 2016 Democratic Primary. If, like myself, you’re an irony-poisoned leftist, it gets rather tiresome to read the endless hagiography about Hillary Rodham Clinton, about how she’s the most qualified candidate ever and it’s the fault of anyone who dared to vote third party or not vote at all that she lost.
The latest salvo in this proxy war occurred was a Newsweek article titled “Socialist Bernie Sanders Wears a $700 Jacket While Complaining About Rich People,” by Maria Perez. It was a non-story that was also covered by Washington Times and The Daily Wire. The latter founded by the impish Ben Shapiro, a man with a serious Napoleon Complex. I’m under average height myself, but the only manifestation of my Napoleon Complex is my desire to invade Russia in the winter.
Anyway, that’s good company to keep if the end goal is winding up as birdcage lining rather than journalistic integrity.
The truth about Sanders’ coat is that it was a gift from his stepson, Dave Driscoll, who works at Burton Snowboards, the company that makes the jacket. Bernie received the jacket as a Christmas gift in 2016, according to a Jan. 21, 2017, tweet from Jane Sanders. Bernie wore the jacket at the inauguration last January.
There’s some assumption that in order to be a socialist, one must live like an ascetic. To do something as gauche as owning a coat is viewed by some as antithetical to socialism.
Often times when someone writes something critical of capitalism, some genius will say something like, “You criticize capitalism, yet you own an iPhone.” Which is silly, because it assumes that products like that can only be created under one economic system. A comic by cartoonist Matt Bors titled “Mister Gotcha” satirizes the phenomenon. It can be viewed at thenib.com/mister-gotcha.
It’s a foolhardy position to take as it ignores a speech given by socialist Rose Schneiderman. In the speech, Schneiderman says, “The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too.” That line inspired the logo of the Democratic Socialists of America, an organization that endorsed the candidacy of Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Socialists like Bernie Sanders want to see a more even distribution of wealth, higher standards of living and more social safety nets like a higher minimum wage and universal health care.
Some would argue that Sanders is getting the same push back Hillary Clinton got for wearing an Armani jacket — priced between $7,000 and $12,000 — during her victory speech following the New York primary.
The issue is not that Clinton wore an expensive garment, she’s free to do whatever she likes, it’s that she opposes policies that would benefit members of the working class. She initially campaigned on raising the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour, less than the $15 an hour that Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley and activists around the U.S. were in favor of. It’s only $3, but that can add up quite in a hurry. Clinton said she was in favor of local and state efforts to go beyond the federal minimum.
And when it comes to healthcare, Clinton has been resistant to the feasibility of single-payer healthcare happening. A change from the position she held earlier in her career.
It’s this poverty of imagination that illustrates the lack of enthusiasm and passion for the Democratic Party as it currently operates. The party is so quick to compromise and reach across the aisle, that’s not a courtesy extended by the GOP.
During the 2016 election, I described the Clinton campaign as a mid-range jumper, something you settle for when better options are off the table. Three points shots are little less accurate than mid-range shots, but the tradeoff is they’re worth more points. Shots close to the basket tend to be more accurate and there’s a chance of earning a trip to the free throw line.
Like the triangle offense, a system that also saw its greatest success in the 90s, the Clintonian approach to politics of triangulation — a synthesizing of the ideas of the left wing and right wing into a third way built on compromise — is best relegated to the dustbin of history, because it just doesn’t work in the modern era as the 2016 presidential election and the New York Knicks have shown.
It’s 2018, it’s time to move on from the 2016 election and embrace politics that offer a better world, not just settling for table scraps and compromise.