Willful Ignorance: Why White Progressives Continue to Support Bernie Sanders

For the past 3 years, I've met dozens of champions of social justice.

Men and women. Straight and gay. Fifth-generation European descendants and undocumented immigrants. Millennials and boomers. Roman Catholics, Protestants, Episcopalians, Muslims, Jews, Baptists, Methodists, Unitarian Universalists. Asian, African-American, Latino, White. I've met people who have been fighting for social justice since the Vietnam War and those who first became political after the 2016 election. I've worked with retirees in their mid-70s and I've worked with parents who bring their young children to meetings to provide them with their first exposure to social justice work. Like the Democratic Party, these champions of social justice represent a big tent of cultural, ethnic, and religious differences but what unites them all is an inherent desire to do good for their fellow men and women.

In such a diverse group like this, there will inevitably be political differences. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the early primary season. The folks I work with that are already committed to endorsing candidates like Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Andrew Yang. Their reasons seamlessly echo those voiced by people in diners in Iowa and New Hampshire: they want someone they believe in, who they feel has the best chance to beat Donald Trump. As someone whose professional organization does not endorse candidates, I enjoy hearing the appeal of these candidates as to what issues are most important for the constituency that our organization works with. Knowing that the state's primary is still 2 months away, I'm always grateful that people are active and engaged in politics and are encouraging conversations among their family and peers as well.

But what I don't enjoy is hearing the appeal of Bernie Sanders.

For whatever reason, Sanders has amassed a following among the people in and around my professional circle. I have to bite my tongue when someone mentions Sanders while simultaneously bad-mouthing Hillary Clinton. Many don't know that I worked for Hillary's campaign, but even if they did, it wouldn't change their current infatuation with the independent senator from Vermont. Sanders' appeal seemingly transcends age and life experience. I work with multiple millennials who go gaga for Sanders while at the same time I work with multiple longtime labor leaders who also adore Papa Bernie. Men and women both seem drawn to Sanders and his message. I've been to multiple meetings where the keynote speaker will not-so-subtly imply that the Democratic Party picked the wrong nominee in 2016 and this intentional dig will be met by sporadic applause. It is in circles like these that Sanders is seen as a paradigm of Democratic values.

The question of Sanders' appeal is not a total mystery. His message, on the surface, resonates with those who define themselves as liberal or progressive: a need for universal health care coverage, raising the minimum wage, ending endless wars, having corporations and the richest Americans pay their fair share, lowering prescription drug costs, creating a system of affordable higher education. All these issues are on Democrats' checklists for sure. For the millennial generation that came of age during the 2007 financial meltdown, there is an appeal to Sanders' platform, especially the idea that college and health care, whose costs are spiraling out of control, can now become affordable. For the older generation, Sanders' advocacy for increased wages and for holding large corporations accountable that don't pay their fair share in taxes is equally appealing. At this point, I have come to expect those I work with that support Bernie Sanders to quote him word for word on their issue of choice.

What's most discerning for me is that as agreeable as Sanders' platform is, it seems that none of his baggage seems to bother those who support him. The list reads like a Karl Rove wet dream: the rape essay, being a deadbeat dad while running for office, his support for Fidel Castro and later the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, his efforts to dump nuclear waste on the poor Texas Latino community of Sierra Blanca, his vote against the Amber Alert System, his 5 votes against the Brady Bill, his shady campaign finances, his failing health, and the corrupt Sanders Institute among others. As if all this wasn't bad enough, there is the overarching boogeyman that would be leveled at Sanders from day one: the fact that he is a self-proclaimed socialist. At a time when 3/4 of Americans would not support an open socialist, that number would slide even further once Republicans interjected Bernie Sanders quotes with images of failed socialist nation-states like Venezuela. Overall, it would be a complete bloodbath if Bernie Sanders were to ever become the Democratic nominee for president.

But those that support Bernie Sanders cannot see the forest through the trees. They see his policies as being completely separate from the person. They don't see that other Democratic Party candidates share 90%+ of the same policies as Bernie Sanders without all the baggage that Sanders brings. That is because they are fixated on the idea of Bernie Sanders rather than the reality. They want Sanders to be the nominee because they want him to succeed. They feel like Sanders is speaking to them, to their worries and concerns. They fixate on a single policy and block out everything else. What they see therefore is a mirage. It's a political candidate who appears on the horizon and whose message draws them in. Yet like a mirage, once you see it up close and personal, you see that it is an image only in your mind. The image of Bernie Sanders as a paradigm of progressivism is a mirage that has taken hold of many of these people for the past 4 years and it is an image that is simply not real.

The reason that this image of Bernie endures is that his supporters are overwhelmingly white and college-educated. They can afford to take a politician at his word as they have never been lied to by a Democratic nominee for president before. The people I work with all fit this bill. They mean well, but they have never been manipulated by a politician asking for their vote. Contrast this experience with people of color who are continuously unimpressed with Bernie Sanders. There's a reason why Sanders trails Joe Biden by 29 points among black voters. Black voters know what it's like to have a candidate panhandling for votes in their communities. They know who is genuine and who is showing up in an election year and only in an election year. People of color truly know Bernie Sanders and because of this, they are much less likely to take him at his word. This echoes my experience as not a single prominent person of color within my professional community supports the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. They too can see through the mirage and they know better to trust someone who only comes around once every few years.

The primary season will play itself out over the next 6 months. But for those looking to identify a candidate who is genuine, it should speak volumes that despite running for president for the past 4 years, Bernie Sanders still cannot make inroads to non-White, college-educated voters. While 93% of black women voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, only 8% of black voters currently support Bernie Sanders, a painstakingly low number for a candidate with the kind of name recognition that Sanders has. No Democratic candidate can win a general election with that number and Sanders has done nothing to show that the number will increase. Black voters have come to know Bernie Sanders and they are not impressed. While White progressives might still be smitten four years later, black voters continue to see through Bernie Sanders. Knowing that black voters and people of color are the Democratic base, White progressives need to check their privilege and learn to listen. Until they do this, until they open their ears and their hearts, they will be ignoring the people who tried so desperately to warn us about Donald Trump in 2016.

And that is what this election comes down to: listening. Listening to the refugees and DREAMers living in uncertainty. Listening to the hundreds of thousands of displaced Puerto Ricans. Listening to the immigrants facing increasing xenophobia. Listening to black America's ardent call for criminal justice reform. These traditionally marginalized groups knew what was on the ballot in 2016 and they voted accordingly. White people did not. White people primarily either voted for Donald Trump or, as was the case with Bernie Sanders' supporters, threw their vote away by voting third party or not voting at all. If you believe in change through social justice, you have to put the needs of those most impacted at the front and center of your work. If all those impacted are shifting away from Bernie Sanders, that should tell you that they know him better than you and that they can spot the fraud from a mile away. If you truly want to make a difference for the most vulnerable among us, you need to trust them and you need to trust them by truly listening about what they have to say. To fight for social justice is to put the needs of the most vulnerable communities above your own personal needs and this specifically includes your vote. If you're voting on your own self-interest and not your community then you're no better than a Donald Trump supporter.

It's time for privileged white people to finally admit this and do better in 2020.