On the candidates for The Democratic Party

As today is Super Tuesday in the US, I thought it would be worthwhile to put down in writing some thoughts on the candidates for The Democratic Party from the perspective of someone who is currently a permanent resident of the US without being able to vote.

As pointed out by many of the moderate candidates, the risk is that Bernie Sanders is unelectable at the general election. There is a good chance that this is true; that too much of the US electorate still sees socialism as a dirty word and remains convinced by the promises set in place by Reaganomics and Thatcherism - economic freedom without social responsibility. In such a case, the scare campaign by the Republications against Sanders will be brutal and effective.

Many Democratic voters seem inclined to vote for whoever will have the best chance of defeating Donald Trump. Having lived for almost four years with Trump as president, I completely understand this sentiment. Yet the difficulty is that this requires second-guessing the mood of the country; something that didn't work out too well in 2016. The risks of a progressive candidate like Sanders seem readily apparent but there are also similar risks in a moderate candidate.

Joe Biden has more or less said that he considers Donald Trump's presidency to be an aberration and the country can basically return to the economic polices and environment the Obama era. But what if Trump's presidency is not an aberration. Or more importantly, if the factors that drove his election were not. Trump was able to capitalise on rage within the electorate. Rage at an economic system that saw jobs and industries move offshore and replaced with less well paid and more insecure ones. Rage at a system that saw families and communities left behind, on the wrong side of an increasing inequality gap. Rage at the status-quo.

Is putting forward a candidate like Biden - pretty much the embodiment of the establishment and the status-quo - likely to appeal to these voters? It seems unlikely. Yet it also feels like the policies of Sanders - and to some extent Elizabeth Warren - are about a decade too early for the US overall. The uncomfortable truth is that the Republication party probably has a solid campaign against either a moderate or a progressive Democratic candidate. The Democratic Party on the other hand might just not have a candidate that can fully appeal to a country in flux, dissatisfied with the status-quo but unable to agree on what should come next.

The fact that this might be the case in the face of another four years of Donald Trump is extremely depressing. Certainly if Trump gets another four years the US and its institutions will be significantly changed as a result and not for the better.

This seems to be a theme for left and centre-left parties at this point in history. Both the Labor Party in Australia and the Labour Party in the UK seemed to be going in the right direction with their policy platforms but were hampered by not quite the right messenger, not quite the right message and the remnants of an former economic consensus showing some but not incontrovertible signs of failure.

Personally Elizabeth Warren has always seemed the best option for The Democratic Party. Deeply intelligent, with a strong understanding of the problems of the current system and ideas on how to solve them, she has also shown an impressive ability to explain these ideas to those not familiar with them. While possibly not perfect, this balance feels like the best chance for the US to make the necessary reforms for a fairer society while bringing along all of the electorate rather than further polarising it.

Ideally, if Trump does get another four years, progressives and moderates should use the next four years to build the next model for political and economic consensus that is more stable than the remnants of one that we have today. This does seem idealistic, particularly in the US due to its political system, but feels like the only way to retrieve politics from the hands of populists spruiking simplistic solutions in place of difficult policy reforms.