Back in high school, lo those many many (many) years ago, I learned a phrase with respect to my favorite board game, “Diplomacy”: “Diplomacy is the art of saying “nice doggy” until you find a big enough stick.”
This phrase came into my head with the news of Mayor Pete dropping out of the Democratic primary field, and Joe Biden having a decisive win in the South Carolina primary. It connects with my reticence over Bernie Sanders as an eventual nominee. Let me explain.
Much as we may hate to admit it, America is not a country that loves, it is a country that hates. It started out in racism, and hasn’t yet moved past it. Oh, we Liberals like to believe that we have moved past it. We like to believe that the struggles for women starting in the early 20th century, the battle for civil rights in the 1960s, and the battles for gay rights in the 2000s have settled the issue and we have moved past the racism. But one look at Trump, and what his followers espouse on the Internet will quickly abuse one of that notion. Hate is rampant. Explicit and implicit bias is still there.
Further, we like to believe that we can wave a magic wand and it will disappear. Just by picking the right presidential candidate, we can move past all this hatred and usher in that perfect progressive society. We’ll do that by picking a perfect candidate, one that has no racist or problematic history. One wave, and (poof) society will be great again. After all, we saw how racism disappeared when we elected President Obama.
Diplomacy is the art of saying “nice doggy”, until you find a big enough stick.
Fact The First: The most important thing this election is to ensure a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House, with as large a majority as possible.
Fact The Second: The second most important thing this election is to elect a Democratic president and remove Trump, his croneys, and his sycophants. Why second? Because if we get the first, we have the means to at least remove Trump and his cronys, and hopefully get a more moderate Republican administration.
Fact The Third: The Democratic election majorities at the ballot box must be sufficiently large that the election cannot be contested; large enough that even if they throw out some number of votes, the election still gives a Democratic result.
The corollary of this third fact is that we must therefore convince the moderate Republicans (those who are fed up with Trump) to vote for Democratic candidates, in sufficient numbers to get that majority. That means we must run candidates that are not only palatable to the Democratic base, but to those in the middle. We want a repeat of the 1964 election, in terms of landslide against Trump and his policies.
Combine these facts, and you’ll find yourself saying “Nice Doggy”. We are not going to elect Bernie and magically get his splendiferous agenda. We’re not going to elect Liz and get all those plans. We’re going to get a compromise shaped by the House and the Senate, one that will likely be closer to the moderate policies — because it must be able to pass the House and Senate.
Saying “Nice Doggy” has shaped the field. It is why all the top candidates now are old white men — because old white men aren’t as scary. Well, Bernie might be in the fright mask, but I digress. It is why the Democrats might be coalescing around a moderate, even if Bernie ends up with the most delegates (but not a majority). Remember the implication of that: most delegates, but not a majority, means the majority of the party WANTS SOMEONE ELSE. They just couldn’t unify on precisely who — they just know who they don’t want it to be.
Saying “Nice Doggy” for the election also means the stick is coming. When the election is over, and an acceptable ticket is elected (Biden/Abrams, Sanders/Harris, etc.), then the work can really begin — the work of addressing the structural racism and classism in this country. But we can’t do anything if Trump and McConnell remain in charge. Hell, we can’t do anything even if Sanders is elected, and McConnell remains in charge.
Thus endeth this rant. And I didn’t even mention Amy.
