This primary season has been hard for me. Every time I’ve tried to view this field of candidates, I’m left seeing weaknesses in each. Originally I was figuring Senator Sanders’ organizational strength would clear the field. When there turned out to be fissures inside of that structure, I reset my evaluation. I’ve considered Harris and Warren. I’ll vote for Biden, but I don’t see him as strong as others do. Polling at this point is more about name recognition, and I worry Biden’s erratic style will cause problems as the microscope focuses.
Then this morning I was reading an article about mayor Pete, and I realized something for the first time. I wasn’t reading about a baby boomer argument. My lifetime has been spent as a Gen X’er fighting over the cultural conflicts of people born in the couple decades after WWII. This isn’t a statement about age. It is the arguments themselves. Granted with Sanders and Warren rising to prominence, more of those generational arguments are finding themselves in the mainstream, but these are still the arguments of the 1960’s.
On the right we are seeing John Birch Society types get added into the Billy Graham / cold warrior mix, which is still just a broadening of this same generation’s dominance over the definition of political discourse.
I’m tired of these arguments. I’m tired of fighting over them, as generations of Americans have fallen behind. We have prioritized these arguments over the practical realities affecting the lives of the people in this country. These arguments have created a country unable to focus on their own interests, which has yielded a body politic with complete disregard for the people they represent. There is probably more broad consensus on a host of issues I care about than any time in history, but these damned arguments always take center stage.
While I have serious concerns about the way Buttigieg handled policing in South Bend, on the balance, I see him as navigating a different America than the other candidates. I am an atheist, but I recognize that there are many people of faith in this country. He speaks Christian in a more authentic way than the other candidates. This matters because evangelicals do not represent the plurality of the religious voters in this country, but we haven’t done a good job reaching the majority, who don’t have much of a voice. He doesn’t alienate voters that we need persuade.
There is a long road ahead, and I am certainly not saying there aren’t good reasons to support another candidate, but in Pete I can begin to make out an America no longer dominated by the squabbles of a singular American generation. Since the baby boomers have risen to political dominance, our politics have gotten worse. We are more divided. We have done worse at taking care of each other. We have become more dysfunctional. I just feel we need to stop looking back, because there just aren’t any answers there.
So I made my first donation to a presidential contender this cycle, and I thought I would share how I got there.