I’m writing this before any caucuses, before any primaries.
But it’s clear to me what the story of the Democratic Primary is going to be.
The Generation Gap.
It’s back, baby.
The mystery of Bernie Sanders’ rising in January’s polls, to the top of the Democratic stack, is all about the Generation Gap. It’s now wider than it’s been at any time since Bernie here was on the other side of it, in the 1960s.
Iowa voters are well aware of how they're talking past one another. While Bernie was beloved of the young folks on Tuesday, Pete Buttigieg, the youngest candidate in the field, was favored by the olds.
White baby boomers, people my age, love them some Trump. The rich are with the Moolah and are afraid higher taxes might hurt their 401K fortunes. The poor are with the Mullahs, fearful of their immortal soul.
Black boomers, on the other hand, are mainly on the side of Joe Biden. It’s not that they love Biden, but they know it’s better to have a winner who tolerates you than to go down to steaming defeat at the hands of racists and other jackals. If they thought Elizabeth Warren could win, and get her plans through Congress, they might switch to her.
But if you’re under 40, regardless of your race, there’s every reason to be for Sanders.
For one thing, you get to stick it to the man. Boomers have rationalized every Trump depredation. We think he’s temporary, or that he’s holding back the tide. Democratic boomers, and Gen X’ers (now age 40-57) see a “yeah, but” candidate like Biden, Buttigieg or maybe Klobuchar “peeling away” those invisible “moderate Republicans” who always show up in The New York Times and claim they might see sense, but only if we’re super-nice and don’t irritate them.
If you’re under 40, you know better. The Earth is burning. Racism seems triumphant. Sexism seems triumphant. Democracy is in full retreat everywhere. Every guardrail separating America from the abyss has been smashed, and the bus keeps rolling on. Meanwhile, you still haven’t paid back your student loans, which never gave you the career they promised. You don’t have health care in the gig economy. You can’t afford the rent.
There are exceptions. My kids are exceptions. They’re around 30, enjoying their white privilege. They don’t have any student loans. They can take their time about making difficult choices. My wife and I have worked all our lives to give them this. I won’t apologize for it.
But, as I said, they’re exceptions. Too many millennials with middle class parents have found themselves on the working-class side as that majority has been ripped apart. Even for those on the “good side” economically, there’s that Earth burning thing.
Bernie, at least, has been consistent. Bernie Sanders is the same as he was when he marched against Vietnam and supported the right side in the Civil Rights cause. That’s all history to anyone under 50, but Bernie has stayed true to it and this means something to them.
It’s the consistency that worries me. I feel a bit like the Olds who supported the “kids” like Bernie over Vietnam. I see through Bernie’s consistency. Even Ronald Reagan “evolved.” Bernie is more like John Brown, whose death in 1859 helped bring about the Civil War. If I could I’d like to keep 2% of our young people from dying in armed conflict over the next five years, which is what happened to the generation that followed Brown into battle.
As I’ve said here several times in the last year, I believe American politics follows the Golden Rule. He who has the money makes the rules. The Cloud Czars and other tech companies now have the money. They’re the people who should be seizing power. They’re the ones who need human capital, something Trump spits on.
But the tech giants are conflicted. Just like the oil barons in 1980, who didn’t commit to Ronald Reagan until Reagan brought in George Bush, today’s tech barons are “yeah but” about things. Based on campaign contributions, I suspect they liked Kamala Harris. After she dropped out, they flirted with Biden, and some even gave Andrew Yang a little tug. Right now, they seem to be lining up behind Michael Bloomberg, who not only doesn’t cost them anything but is literally one of them. Bloomberg News is a tech company, not a news company.
But Bloomberg can’t be nominated. His support is all among those over 50. Beating Trump in 2020 requires not just support from those under 40, but huge turnout as well.
That’s what today’s pundits don’t believe will happen with Bernie. They look at the polls showing Bernie leading in early states and insist it remains to be seen whether young people will show up for him. I increasingly suspect that they will.
What happens next may be something of a Eugene McCarthy moment. McCarthy, if you have read your history books, wasn’t the 1968 Democratic nominee. But he did punch out Lyndon Johnson, he did upend the race. Then came the violence.
I’m afraid the violence may come again. This isn’t going to be the rough, tumble, but fair process we saw in 2008. This is the crisis of our time, the crisis of your kids’ time, and for all my hope I can’t predict how it’s going to turn out.
I just suspect, when all is said and done, that the Golden Rule will hold. Tech will find its way through the fog, get one of its favorites on the ticket (if not atop it) and make certain Trump is defeated. Whatever Facebook Deplorables or voting machine hacking can do on one side, tech can do on the other, and in the current technology war Trump is outgunned.
Sanders-Harris?
