Despite the long running primary season- and even (or especially) as a political junkie, it feels like years now- I’m still deciding which Democrat to support here in New York tomorrow. I have reasons that I really like both candidates, and there are issues that really irk me about both as well. I’m hoping for substantive comments, and perhaps hoping to highlight that both are, in their own ways, really good candidates. If you’re willing, follow me down through the thought process.
On the one hand:
I have a familial affinity for Bernie. My grandfather (Grandpa Bernie, no relation) was similar in many ways- a Jew who was born in the US shortly after his parents emigrated from Europe, who was generally secular but was definitely influenced by his Jewish background, and who held socialist values and fought for them. Grandpa Bernie was a generation older than Bernie Sanders, having been born in 1915, and that caused distinct differences in their lives. Grandpa Bernie got married during the Great Depression, and he and Grandma Sally had their first children during World War II- he had a medical exemption, but worked on mail trains, so he was involved with government efforts nevertheless. He was a union organizer and an avowed socialist despite being an accountant later in life, in an era when being a socialist was a good way to be blacklisted. He did his organization under a false name, left money to socialist causes in his will by asking his sisters to distribute the money “to the causes to which they know I would like it to go,” and when he had Alzheimer’s Disease, was terrified that the FBI had found out his real name. I have to imagine he’d be tickled pink by a Jewish socialist legitimately running for President.
On the other hand:
I have an 8 month old daughter, full of life and joyously happy to explore the world. She is physically active, pulling up on everything she can, cruising, and generally doing things that could injure her a couple months before we expected. I am incredibly proud of her, and like to wear her wherever and whenever I can- much less than my wife/her mother, who is home with her, but when I get the chance to take her out on the weekends and when I’m home early enough in the afternoons. I’m hoping, if her sleep schedule works, to wear her to the polling booth tomorrow, before work. There is something incredibly appealing about voting for a woman for President, to be able to say “you can be whatever you want when you grow up” in a concrete rather than a metaphorical way.
On the other hand:
I’m a Jew, the child of Jews, husband of a Jew, father of a Jew. In the same way that a number of women feel pride in Hillary and see her in the way I described above, and the same way that many people in the black community feel about President Obama, I feel pride for Bernie’s run as a Jewish candidate. He’s not religiously observant, but it’s clear from his statements that his Judaism nevertheless has impacted his feelings deeply. Jews in America are clearly white, but Jews in other places have and do suffer oppression, and even here in the US I’ve heard plenty of directly, not to mention indirectly, Anti-Semitic statements. There is also an appeal of being able to say “you can be whatever you want when you grow up” to my daughter about being a Jew, as well as about being a woman.
On the other hand:
I’m something of a policy wonk. I love details and numbers, despite, or perhaps because of, being a history teacher. I’m the guy who checks 538 multiple times per day, who follows the pundits’ Twitter accounts, who wants to know the polls. I’m the unofficial person to ask tax and insurance questions to at work, not because of any professional ability but because I know a lot since I find it interesting. When I see a news story about an interesting law, I look up the law (incidentally, if anyone has a link to the new family leave part of the NY budget, I’d greatly appreciate it). And that means that I find Hillary’s wonkishness deeply appealing. I want to know that the person I’m hearing from knows all the details, or at least that their advisors know all the details, and it always feels to me like that’s the case with Hillary- not so much with Bernie. And I worry about a lot of those details, particularly in terms of health care but in general as well.
On the other hand:
I find Bernie’s grand vision to be a breath of fresh air. It’s not that I don’t understand Hillary’s reticence, but Bernie’s ideas are grand enough that it feels like they could be negotiated down with substantial gains. I worry that Hillary’s plans don’t go far enough, and I feel like, given how unpopular Trump is (and how much I think that Cruz will terrify more voters when they get to know him), Hillary needs a grand vision plan- a plan for what she would do if Democrats had a wave election that took both the House and the Senate. It’s clear what Bernie wants in that case, but I can’t tell whether Hillary is proposing what she really wants or what she thinks is realistic.
On the other hand:
I find a lot of Bernie’s supporters to be a little terrifying, and it feels to me like his staff, in particular, is playing on their frightening enthusiasm. As a history teacher, revolution scares me- I teach too many revolutions where the calmer heads don’t prevail and where everyone ends up worse off. I’m not saying that Bernie, or even his supporters, support violent revolution, but too much of the rhetoric seems to be “if you’re not with me, you’re against me.” And I don’t think that most Hillary supporters are against Bernie, per se. But I worry that too many Bernie supporters might be against Hillary and her supporters, and there is too much anger and nastiness for me to be comfortable. (I’ll also add- at the risk and hope that this doesn’t turn into a pie fight- that I’m closer to Hillary on I/P issues, and tend to feel like that alone would drive many Bernie supporters to say “go away, you’re not one of us.”) I’m hoping for unity no matter what, and that feels like a very distant hope at the moment.
In short: I have too many hands!
Edited: I just wanted to thank everyone who has commented- you’ve managed to give me a whole lot to think about, and it’s been in a respectful, well-reasoned manner which promotes both of the candidates and hasn’t turned into a pie-fight. After all the rec-list diaries in the last few months, this one was a breath of fresh air.
