I realize a lot of people, i.e., voters, are jumping on a candidate now. Each Democratic presidential candidate seems to be developing a cheering squad; each Democratic candidate also seems to be developing critics.
This is something I don’t quite understand. Yeah, if I worked on it I’d probably come up with some sort of why, but I have no intention of working on it. And thanks to a New York Times comment today, I don’t have to.
This early, I’m learning about each candidate. Right now, at the beginning, I really like them all. My fellow American voters will eventually pare down the field for me.
My attitude about elections has always been the same: I think about the candidates, evaluate their values, their ideas, their experience, their intelligence. Their senses of humor, too, how quick they are on their feet, the way they present themselves.
Then I sit back and watch what happens. I can’t do much of anything — except listen and donate money — until the primary.
Today, in commenting on the New York Times’ front page article about Kamala Harris, someone wrote a strongly rational expression, with a sharp reminder of recent history, on the 2020 presidential campaign. He/she points out why voters quickly shut themselves away from the larger picture, the larger vision of democracy.
Let’s not do that.
Harris speaks well. The fact that she changed her position on various issues as her experiences changed seems reasonable. There are a lot of people who are disappointed by people who do so, however, because they are certain about what they feel are truths about the world. Elected representatives must serve all their constituents, it’s a matter of fulfilling their responsibilities, so sometimes they must act other than what they’d act on their own. They will disappoint people who have no skepticism about the infallibility of their own beliefs. Our republic is on the verge of flying apart due to the four decades long anti-liberal propaganda from the right, starting with the election of Reagan. He brought the anti-liberal democratic message in the appearance of liberal values but he learned his message from reactionary archconservative business executives. He was an intellectual lightweight. Government is our democratic form of government and the message against government interference is an old reactionary attitude that advocates for the rule by the most powerful instead of by the law. Like it or not government policies are the will of the majority of the people not some alien conspiracy. We must focus on restoring mutual trust so that demagogues like Trump can not achieve high office anymore. The Democrats must offer a candidate who will unify the electorate before all else.
So let’s remain skeptical “about the infallibility of [our] own beliefs.”