The Meritocracy Elite versus Shake Things Up

Do voters want restoration of a centrist order, or do they want change?

And if they want change, do they want liberal populism or right populism?

We can put names on this. 

          Biden for centrist order.

          Sanders/Warren for liberal populism.

          Trump for right populism.

Expert Meritocracy failed too many people

Hillary Clinton represented something that got rejected. 

In addition to representing her Party and gender, she represented the centrist order, a bipartisan consensus that people of presumed merit and expertise fulfill their responsibility to be capable leaders.

Hillary represented a meritocracy, someone educated at Harvard and Yale and Oxford and Georgetown and a few other places. A group that voted to enter the war in Iraq. One that de-regulated the banks, that oversaw the collapse of the economy, and then its recovery by bailing out those banks. It was a meritocracy that cut taxes on the rich, one that allowed student debt to be crushing, one that caused young people to defer child bearing into their 30s, one that made housing costs unaffordable in the parts of the country where jobs were being created, one that had overseen automation and foreign competition destroy manufacturing jobs, one that made health care unaffordable for many.

Sanders speaking to labor in Iowa

Centrism worked for some people, but not for enough people in the right states, so voters elected an implausible reality TV con man with three wives, a history of self serving bankruptcies, and no clear policy agenda other than dislike for Latino immigration. Many Republicans voted joyously. Many on the left stayed home. Even Trump was better than Hillary and the meritocratic centrist order.

But Trump has turned out to be so erratic, so personally objectionable to so many, so patently PT Barnum, that faced with a choice between Trump and Biden, a majority tell polls they now pick Biden. It is not that Biden is better than Hillary; it is that Trump was more chaotic and less effective than some voters had hoped. His tweets. His erratic behavior. Biden seems safe; Trump does not.

Biden and Trump represent a choice: Restoration of Normalcy vs. Shake Things Up with more chaos. Democrats have a alternative. Left populism, as voiced by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Sanders and Warren do not want "restoration." Continue below:

Warren and Sanders say that expert-led centrist order failed. 

They opposed the Iraq war, they favor re-regulating banks, they favor taxing the wealthy, they favor reducing or expunging student debt, they oppose NAFTA, they want Medicare for All. These are left-populist remedies, with a large receptive audience.

Facebook war: Sanders people fighting Warren

There is a struggle between them now, primarily led by Sanders people saying Warren is not progressive enough. Only one can be nominated.

Trump represents right-populism. Right populism attacks the expert professional meritocratic class and their foreign policy failures, and their urbane acceptance of diversity, secularism, and immigration. Trump imagined Muslims cheering the fall of the World Trade Center. He calls Maxine Walters "Low IQ." He says he saved "Merry Christmas" from PC scolds. He knows what right populists care about: making "America great again," define in large part by a cultural order restored. 

Meritocratic bipartisan America made mistakes, but for many people--possibly a majority of voters--it worked well enough. After all, Hillary almost won. But many problems have gotten worse under the Trump presidency.  Health care is more expensive, student debt more burdensome, tax regressiveness has gotten worse, manufacturing jobs have continued to leave, immigration has not been resolved. Mexico didn't pay for the wall. 

Biden supporters crowd him in Iowa

There is opportunity for either Biden or Sanders/Warren. The big decision in 2020 will be which message Democrats will choose: restoration of the centrist order, with all its problems and failures, or left populism with its risks of the unknown.