A Conservative’s Take on the Democratic Primary

When the “tragedy of the 2020 Democratic Primary is that some seriously viable options got lost in the noise.”

With the insane number of candidates, the shifting ideological and demographic makeup of the Democratic Party, and the inclusion of eccentrics like Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang—the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary has provided lots of fodder for political observers and commentators. I do not, of course, have the time, space, or attention span to provide commentary on all sixty-seven and a half candidates who are currently running in the Democratic Primary (Sorry if there are more candidates than this, I haven’t checked in the last ten minutes); so I will confine my analysis to the only three candidates whom I believe have any serious chance of winning the nomination. 

Let us begin with the current frontrunner, Vice President Joe Biden. Biden has managed to cobble together a curious primary coalition consisting of African-Americans, moderate Democrats, and older white people. Unless one or more of these groups defects, or enough progressive candidates drop out of the race that the entire progressive wing of the party coalesces behind one of them, Joe Biden should be considered a strong frontrunner and the most likely nominee.

I’ll be honest: I loathe Joe Biden. I know he has developed an image of an affable, harmless oaf who has dedicated his whole career to good governance and bipartisanship, but that image is nothing more than a mirage. In truth, Joe Biden is a hardcore partisan and, in my view, our country is far worse off for his service to it. It was the under Joe Biden’s Chairmanship that the Senate Judiciary Committee carried out the character assassinations of Judge Robert Bork and Justice Clarence Thomas, thus laying the groundwork for the hyper partisanship and dysfunction that characterizes the judicial confirmation process today. Additionally, Biden is a serial liar, plagiarist, and creep. I am aware that much the same can be said about President Trump, but somehow “Our pathological liar who can’t keep his hands to himself is better than yours,” doesn’t strike me as the winning argument that Biden supporters seem to think it is. This is a man so cynical and so void of any sense of decency that he shamelessly told a majority African-American audience in the run up to the 2012 presidential election that Mitt Romney would “Put y’all back in chains.” Joe Biden does not deserve to be President, and I hope that Democratic primary voters reach that conclusion.

Depending on which polls you believe, it now looks like Senator Elizabeth Warren is in second place for the Democratic Nomination. My position on Warren has remained the same throughout this primary process, I believe that she is more ready to be President than are all of her serious competitors. Though she has no experience governing, Warren does have a clear and coherent vision for the nation; a vision that I find contemptible, but which nevertheless represents a plausible and clearly thought out alternative to the American model of limited government and individual liberties. Warren would not be a caretaker president as would Joe Biden, she would be as transformational as her congressional majority would allow her to be.

I do shed a single tear, however, when I reflect on what her quest for power has done to Senator Warren. Gone is the interesting and heterodox academic from Harvard Law; she has been replaced by as generic and pure a progressive ideologue as can be contemplated, albeit with a more thought out series of policy proposals than most other candidates. Still, if I were a democratic primary voter, I would back Senator Warren.

Bernie Sanders has been a member of Congress since 1991, first as a member of the House of Representatives and then as a Senator. In that time, he has sponsored seven bills that became law; two dealing with veterans’ issues, one protecting the Taconic Mountains, one granting federal consent to an interstate compact between Vermont and New Hampshire, one designating March 4th as “Vermont Bicentennial Day”, and two renaming post offices in Vermont (yes, really). That is to say, Bernie Sanders has never sponsored a bill of any consequence which subsequently became law.

Senator Sanders has little to run on other than his status as the most leftwing member of the United States Senate. His quasi cult-like fans cling to his consistency as justification for their unconditional support, and this article of faith does have some grounding in reality. Bernie Sanders is literally nothing if not consistent; he has consistently been nothing more than a pundit on the taxpayer’s dime, and has consistently refused to compromise in order to affect real change, thus making him an entirely useless legislator. Sanders is not qualified to be president, and if elected his vows of ideological purity would ensure that he got no serious legislation passed—a fitting end to a lackluster career. 

The true tragedy of the 2020 Democratic Primary is that the ridiculous number of candidates meant that some interesting and truly serious politicians got lost in the noise. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are not serious politicians, however, and I believe that it is in the best interest of our politics and our country if we as an electorate allow unserious people like them to fade into obscurity. Conversely, it is important for the sake of elevating our political discourse that the American people elect and reward serious politicians, a category in which I include Senator Elizabeth Warren, whatever our differences.