Give the devil his due, the television personality Donald Trump knows a thing or two about cultural hegemony. Antonio Gramsci, the brilliant democratic communist who developed the concept, and who died in an Italian Fascist prison, would have recognized the type. Perhaps though, he would have been more concerned with the longer range political implications of what will happen in the Democratic Party primaries.
Whatever combination of factors presently attracts young people to the Sanders campaign, neither the Clinton campaign nor the Democratic Party owns it. Bernie Sanders only has it on loan too. The fact that he recognizes this makes him a decent partner in the political revolution many, and for now most, young people want as much as he does.
While the Clinton campaign controls the Democratic Party establishment and its platform, the agenda of the people, including young people, who are potentially served by the party is a complex and shifting composite of subjective and objective needs, desires, and expectations. To reduce it to selfish, much less courtship, matters is inaccurate if not quaint.
Most of us want to be part of something greater than ourselves. A successful leader, whether good or evil, appreciates this desire. But, if the Clinton campaign has its way, we will find ourselves in yet more of a seemingly purposeless interregnum. Into that interregnum enters apathy and, if he can, Trump.
When a famous supporter of the Clinton candidacy raised "the boys” issue, it reverberated somewhere deep in my aging reptile brain. I drew a link to something from the American television culture of my 1970’s youth. But it turns out this is well-traveled artistic terrain for actual certified pundits.
In the 2008 campaign, you may recall Clinton lost, saving us from a test case of running an unpopular, untrusted nominee. But before that happened, The Hill “took a lesson” from Happy Days season 2, episode 15, “The Not Making of the President”:
It goes without saying that Sen. Obama bears a certain likeness to Sen. Stevenson. Both from Illinois, both wildly popular with younger voters, both idealistic, both intellectuals, and both will have a hard time attracting the Arthur Fonzarelli vote.
If you are of a certain age you may recall that Richie Cunningham follows an Eisenhower era version of the Gloria Steinem political blueprint, going over to the Adlai Stevenson campaign because it has a female supporter to whom he is attracted.
In Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Party now has on loan a highly motivating potential nominee who can win the younger voters AND the Arthur Fonzarelli vote, many of whom might otherwise be attracted to apathy or the simplistic--not “I like Ike” but “I like the Asswipe."
Gramsci was a living rebuke to the idea that young people think only with their privates, or desire a mate more than justice.
Gramsci believed so much in democracy and political revolution that he was willing to give up his freedom and eventually his life to give Mussolini the bird to his face in a parliamentary speech.
In contrast, the Democratic Party establishment recklessly chose to suppress its own voter turnout to benefit the Clinton campaign. Having in 2008 learned the incomparable value of a contested primary with a high number of debates, when Clinton had her second chance at the nomination it became "six debates. Period.” Only when the Clinton campaign decided it would benefit from more debates did the party chairperson decide that more were a good idea after all.
But the adverse effects of the Clinton campaign could last long beyond those from a depressed Democratic vote in the 2016 election. If the youth of America, including first time voters, are left with a choice between Clinton and Trump, a generational opportunity to mobilize them en masse into a spirited Democratic Party would be lost.
Presumably not many of them would want to become those swinging hipster "Freedom Kids.” (Fuggetabout the Fonz vote, without Bernie it's going with the Asswipe.)
But they easily could be disinterested not only in a Clinton general election candidacy but also in the party that would just say no to their desire for political revolution.
I report. Cultural hegemony decides.