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A Politics of Personalities Instead of Ideas

  Commentary:  Watching the interminable process of the presidential primaries unfold, region by region, week by week, I feel insulted on behalf of my neighbors who are earnest, voting members of the two major parties.

 

Poor New Mexico Democrats, waiting until June 7 to cast their vote while the party's establishment and major news organizations labor furiously to wrap up the nomination months before the convention so they can focus on the general election - and avoid a serious debate over the direction or philosophy of the Democratic Party. The underreported story here is about ideas, not the identities of the candidates. Unfortunately, news organizations are compelled by their business model to eschew substance and manufacture dramatic personal narratives. Why not make this a trial of ideas, instead of a horse race?

 

This year's Democratic primary is a crossroads where voters have an opportunity to weigh in on the party's ideology in unusually clear terms. There has been ideological confusion about this race from the beginning. Some of have blown a lot of smoke about "socialism," while others have claimed (usually in defense of Hillary Clinton) that the two candidates are more alike than they are different.

 

Looking past the smoke at his actual agenda, Bernie Sanders is a "New Deal" Democrat slightly to the left of FDR (who was forced into his New Deal by a working class revolt we sadly can only imagine today). He proposes Keynesian public-sector spending to boost demand and wider distribution of education and human services, and is unapologetic about funding these initiatives via progressive taxation. 

 

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton represents a supremely knowledgeable exponent of the "New Democrat" model, a shift away from Great Society politics in reaction to the Reagan era, toward "neoliberal" economics that endorse NAFTA and similar trade agreements, fiscal austerity, privatization of public sector industries, and punitive measures against the poor. When the Republican Party moved to the right, the "New Democrats" followed them across the center line and this is where the party's establishment rests, ever on guard against its own left flank.

 

Woe also for thoughtful New Mexico Republicans, who are also being told the race is over months before they have an opportunity to vote. This campaign is truly stunning. As contentious as is the Democratic contest, both its candidates demonstrate competence for the office. Republicans have given us the gift of Donald Trump, and I make this statement in earnest: there is much to learn from what Trump has done, and not just for Republicans.

 

The unstable temperament, the preposterous worldview, and the lack of policy substance (or even interest in it) exhibited by this candidate have been widely discussed. He is not, however, a stupid person. A stupid person could not have manipulated the primary process and the hollow journalism of our major media so masterfully. The only business in which Trump has shown actual talent is television, and because he can deliver superstar ratings and internet traffic to hungry newspapers and networks, the media rewarded him with free exposure estimated to be worth nearly $2 billion in advertising, while neglecting more serious candidates.

 

With that saturation coverage, Trump was able to project a glamorous aura of inevitability in his appeal to disaffected poor and working class voters. From this appeal and Trump's behavior, we have been presented with another lesson as well: that racism and violent nationalism have a sympathetic audience in our country wider than most of us admitted.

 

Both parties are at an ideological crossroads with much at stake. It seems unjust to exclude the later states from that conversation.

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Algernon D'Ammassa writes the "Desert Sage" column for the Deming Headlight and Sun News papers. Write to him at DesertSageMail@gmail.com.