America’s Ideological Pendulum: The Case for Hillary Clinton as the Agent for Sustainable Change.

A close — and intelligent — friend once remarked to me that there was no room in America for Marx’s ideas. What I took this to mean was that my friend was very much opposed to Marx’s economic thinking, and indeed, Marx’s collectively-owned and centrally-planned economic model is untenable.

But if Marx failed as an economist, he was quite prophetic as a historian. Though Marx did not detect a new trend, he was quite aware that people react negatively when they are systematically oppressed, and he was quick to see how unchecked and unregulated capitalism was an ugly form of economic repression for most people during the period of early industrialization.

Though he is considered a revolutionary, Marx was first and foremost a reactionary. He quite plainly saw how poor the outcomes were for the proletariat workers of his time, and though he tried to offer a solution, such action is inherently linked to a problem, in this case, the problem to which Marx was reacting: unregulated capitalism.

In the 170 years since Marx published the Communist Manifesto, his economic ideas have been tried and found wanting, but we have not internalized the most valuable takeaway of his observations. That is, while countries all over the world — including the US — have experimented with liberal economic ideas and conservative economic ideas, generally retreating from one extreme to the other without pausing to find an ideal middle ground.

The 2016 election has highlighted this trend. America is currently experiencing some of the worst income inequity in our nation’s history. This inequity in both opportunity and outcomes threatens the very fabric and foundations of our society. Through Marx’s lens, America very likely looks like a society in which communism and/or socialism would be appealing.

Enter Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist whose policy ideals and rhetoric support his self-analysis. As a liberal, I like Bernie, and I agree with much of what he says, but as a pragmatist who wants what is best for America both in the long run and in the short run, I see that a President Sanders would not bring the true shift America needs to make, but only represents another swing of the pendulum.

It might be worth asking why Bernie’s rhetoric is so popular now. There is an answer to that question, and his name is Ronald Reagan, or perhaps Grover Norquist. Reaganomics, trickle down economics, supply-sided economics, or whatever you term to choose the conservative economic ideology that has dominated American politics since the 1980’s has been a quantifiable failure. The rich have become extraordinarily wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. By almost any lifestyle metric, Americans of my generation — the millennials — are worse off than our parents, and less likely to experience their same quality of living. We are the first generation in American history for which this has been the case, and we have the GOP to thank for it. That millennials love Sanders is hardly surprising. We grew up in an era where we were told that giving more to the people who already had the most would help us too; it hasn’t, and because number are numbers we can evaluate them and know for certain that is the case. The unregulated capitalism of Reagan has failed almost as spectacularly as the collectivized socialism of Marx. That a social revolution has not yet followed is a testament to American political and cultural institutions, but the key word is still yet. America needs to shift leftwards to avoid the pitchforks and torches that Marx knew inevitably followed every sustained instance of oppression in history.

But Bernie Sanders isn’t advocating for a shift left, he is advocating for a shift all the way to the left. From our position of weakness on the far right, this does indeed seem appealing but gifted with the lens of history — as well as with the lens of the present — we see that this is more of a rhetorical paradise than an feasible idea. We know that far left economic models are just as flawed as far right economic models, albeit in different manners and for different reasons. We know that in the past America has necessarily retreated from some of those liberal policies — imagine going back to a tax bracket as high as 70% of income, would even Bernie Sanders support such a move?

Now enter Hillary Clinton, a woman unpopular among many for many reasons. I won’t try to convince you here that Clinton is trustworthy, nor will I make an argument for her electability, although it is worth pointing out that historically she and Sanders have occupied many of the same policy positions. What is most important for this argument is what Hillary Clinton represents for an America that loves shifting from one economic extreme to the other without seeming to remember that both extremes are inherently flawed and that vacillating between them every few presidential cycles is not a recipe for long-term success. What America needs is an authentic conversation about the merits of both ideologies, and an attempt to blend their best elements. There is no one in either party that truly strives for this goal, let alone reaches it, but Hillary Clinton represents America’s best bet for pragmatic middle of the road economic thinking.

That sort of thinking doesn’t lend itself to charismatic and inspiring speech making, rather it results in the kind of track record that Hillary Clinton has at high levels of government. To his credit, Bernie too has a track record, but his is more one of fighting than one of achieving. I do love a fighter, but millennials may want to pause and consider why it is that a candidate with national prominence and results is scarier to the Republican elite than a Senator from a small state from Vermont who has always been vocal, but has less to show for it. There is an answer to this question too, and it is because the moneyed Republican interests — i.e. the Koch Brothers — have much more to fear from a candidate that will offer the best of both economic ideals, and thus lay a foundation for sustainable prosperity for all Americans. Such sustainable prosperity is far more likely to lead to the the curbing of America’s far right policies of limiting all regulations and cutting all taxes than eight years worth of an extreme leftward shift — which is unlikely even with a President Sanders since it accounts for neither the House nor the Senate. In fact, assuming that he is elected and somehow implements policy for an entire eight years, it is likely that an extreme shift left will only correct itself after Sanders leaves office whether that happens immediately or after a few years. Sanders himself is evidence of this very phenomenon. Young Americans wouldn’t be rallying around a socialist if Republican policies hand’t concentrated the vast majority of wealth in the hands of a tiny, tiny fraction of the population. The Koch brothers and others can afford to sit around for eight years while President Sanders tries to implement his agenda, knowing that their odds of funding an alternative who will undo those ideas — if they can be implemented anyhow — only increase with each additional step to the left. Far scarier to the Kochs is a president who, by curbing things less than Bernie would, shows Americans a long-term balance that is much less palatable to the Koch’s bottom line.

So yes, Sanders is the revolutionary of the moment, but like Marx he is a reactionary with plans to fix a momentary problem without building the sustainable foundation for long-term success. In the long-term there is likely no greater threat to achieving Sanders’ goals than Sanders himself. Nobel prize winning economist, uber-liberal, and single payer healthcare proponent Paul Krugman understands this as well as anyone. For all the lies that were told trying to convince Americans that Obamacare was a government takeover of healthcare — when in fact it created millions of new customers for private insurance companies — can you imagine the response to President Sanders’ plan to actually have government take over healthcare? And no, that’s not an argument for electability, that’s an argument for the reality and feasibility of governing. Sanders wants to pick another fight over healthcare in the immediate aftermath of the ugliest fight on healthcare in decades. Do his supporters actually believe this will result in the implementation of a single-payer system? If so, I must question whether they’ve been paying attention to politics for the length of Obama’s presidency. In fact, if anything the sharp swings of the electorate have been even more noticeable in the last eight years than they have historically. From hope and change in 2008, we filled the house with people dedicated to repealing that hope and change in 2010, and again, that was due to a “government takeover” of healthcare that mandated millions of new customers for private insurance companies.

Sustainable change in America doesn’t look like a shift from one economic extreme to the other every few decades once we’ve re-reminded ourselves that neither extreme creates real prosperity. Sustainable change looks like someone who is willing to find the most viable path forward; that path winds somewhere between those political extremes simultaneously making it the most necessary path to follow, and the hardest one around which to galvanize support. We are seeing this now among liberals who think Hillary’s views don’t make her progressive enough, and compared to Sanders, I suppose they don’t.

But a far left progressive may make liberals go wild, and, because of where conservative policies have left us, may even win the White House. However those far left ideas are very unlikely to be implemented in our political environment, and even less likely to create the change that progressives believe in, change that necessarily involves reacting to what the other guy does wrong, but also recognizing what to take take from him to strengthen one’s own proposals.

Bernie and Karl Marx are both reactionaries to real problems caused by conservative dogma. Hillary Clinton represents America’s best shot at freeing ourselves from the dogma of both sides and trying to find a rational route long term change free from the restrictions of ideological extremes. Her pragmatic centrism isn’t a political antidote to Bernie’s revolutionary rhetoric, but as a governing devise, it will go a lot further towards accomplishing their — and my — shared goals.

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