Why I Support Sanders Over Warren (And Think You Should, Too)

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters via Newsweek)

Elizabeth Warren, the liberal senator from Massachusetts and Democratic candidate for president, seems to be enjoying something of a surge at the moment; indeed, one recent Economist/YouGov poll put her in second place nationally to Joe Biden, ahead of Bernie Sanders by more than the margin of error for the first time. While it's still quite early and too soon to say anything very definitely, a number of media outlets have begun to promote the idea Warren may be taking over as Biden's main opponent from the left and knocking Sanders out of the spot he's held for months. Although this framing is ultimately questionable, as Matt Taibbi argues in Rolling Stone, I thought it might still be worth offering up my reasons for continuing to support Bernie Sanders even in the face of Warren's newfound popularity.

Don't get me wrong: if Warren's surging in the polls, that a good thing from my perspective as long as she's not simply converting Sanders supporters to her side—and based on RealClearPolitics' polling average, it looks like her rise is, indeed, larger than any decline Sanders has seen in the meantime; both Warren and Sanders are, on average, polling better than they had been in the middle of last month, after Biden entered the race officially and enjoyed an impressive increase in his support (which has now mostly faded). And if Warren does end up being the nominee, I'll ultimately be very heartened by that; she would be, in terms of policy, easily the best nominee the Democratic Party has had in my lifetime (in fact, the best in close to half a century at least). Not to mention that my main concern really is that the nomination doesn't go to Biden or some other centrist-y establishment candidate (which is to say pretty much every candidate, aside from Warren and Sanders, that's currently polling above one percent). The difference between Warren and Biden is much greater—and more frightening—than that between Sanders and Warren. But still, between Sanders and Warren the choice is pretty clear from my perspective, and I want to lay out why.

My answer, in short, is that I think Sanders is more consistently left-wing—or "progressive" if you prefer a more innocuous label—than Warren. There have, of course, been plenty of attempts to deny this, but all the counterarguments fall flat, in my opinion. Let's start out just on a rhetorical level: Sanders openly calls himself a (democratic) socialist; Warren has described herself as "capitalist to my bones." It's pretty clear which of those labels is more leftist. Now, Sanders' platform is hardly anti-capitalist—or even all that much to the left of Warren's—but words do matter, to an extent. The fact is that exploitation of labor is baked into capitalism; profits are made because workers are not given the full fruits of their labor. There are plenty of good things you can point to that have come about as a result of capitalism (and plenty of bad ones, too), and there's a case to be made that it represents a necessary stage in global economic development (which was Karl Marx's position, for those unaware); but the idea that we should cling to capitalism, with its undemocratic and often short-sighted allocation of resources, as we face major crises of inequality and pending climate catastrophe, is ultimately a bad one. Capitalism has proven a lot more flexible and resilient than Marx expected, and maybe it's possible for some form of capitalism (depending on how you define the term) to continue existing even as we overhaul our economic system to deal with climate change, poverty, and rampant inequality; but major, major changes really will be necessary to deal with those things, and now is the time to open people's minds to the idea that capitalism should not be a sacred cow—not to proclaim one's fealty to that failing system.

But actions, as they say, speak louder than words; and I think there are a number of actions that show, more clearly than their own self-descriptions do, the meaningful differences between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. For one thing, there was a significant outcry from progressives for Warren to run against Hillary Clinton in 2016, when it looked like Clinton might have no meaningful opposition; Warren wouldn't do so, but Sanders would. Keep in mind, absolutely no one thought he had any chance of winning the nomination when he declared. His campaign was designed to attract attention to the issue of economic inequality, and started out as symbolic rather than "serious." Of course, you can offer up any number of decent reasons that Warren may not have wanted to run in 2016—she was a freshman senator, and presidential campaigns, even symbolic ones, do take a great deal of time and energy—but she wouldn't even offer an endorsement of Sanders' campaign and, in her position as a superdelegate, she ultimately supported Clinton.

And what was the benefit of all of that in the end? Clinton lost to Trump, as we know, so even as a pragmatic move Warren's strategy was a failure. This was hardly a one-off, either; in my home state of Ohio, there was a similar battle between center and left in the Democratic primary for governor last year. On the one hand, you had Richard Cordray, a relatively bland establishment candidate who could boast an A rating from the NRA; on the other, you had Dennis Kucinich, a long-time progressive who, while perhaps guilty of saying and doing some questionable things in recent years, had supported Medicare for All long before that became an even remotely mainstream position, had consistently stood against imperalistic wars and "interventions" in other countries, and had outspokenly supported LGBT+ rights back when even Jon Stewart thought it was acceptable to mock trans women as "chick[s] with dick[s]." Bernie Sanders stayed out of the race, which was understandable given some of the controversial things Kucinich had done and said in recent years; but Warren, on the other hand, threw her wholehearted support behind Cordray, who would win the primary—and then lose the general election to Republican lizard-man Mike DeWine.

Warren's squishiness—at least in comparison to Sanders—is evident in this campaign already when you compare their stances on Medicare for All. Everyone knows where Sanders stands; he's been championing the idea for years and years and is outspokenly in favor of it. That hasn't changed.  Warren, on the other hand, is less definite. As Axios notes,

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) supports Medicare for all, but has been vague about how to achieve it. Her campaign website calls for a "down payment." And at a CNN town hall in March, she said she would "get everybody at the table" to "figure out how to do Medicare for all," which could include a "temporary role" for private insurance companies.

This is another attempt by Warren to water down progressive principles with centrist-ish "pragmatism," and we know just how well some of her previous efforts have worked.

On foreign policy and the military, the differences are even more striking. Let's take the ever-contentious issue of Israel-Palestine for starters. In 2014, when Israel had killed over 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza (overwhelmingly civilians), Warren said she believed civilian casualties were "last thing Israel wants" and blamed the casualties on "Hamas put[ting] its rocket launchers next to hospitals, next to schools." She then demurred at the suggestion that aid to Israel be made contingent on an end to the building of new (illegal) settlements in the West Bank.

Sanders, on the other hand, has a long (if imperfect) history of criticizing Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, and even voted to withhold over $80 million in aid to Israel unless it put an end to settlement activity, all the way back in 1991. He offered significant, if measured, criticism of Israel and defense of the Palestinians in his 2016 presidential campaign. Later that year, 88 senators signed a letter to then-president Obama, urging his administration to veto any "one-sided" UN Security Council resolution about Israel and Palestine and approvingly quoting Samantha Powers' disgusting speech from when she had vetoed a 2011 resolution that condemned Israel's settlements. Elizabeth Warren signed it; Bernie Sanders didn't.

Not surprisingly, the two candidates' positions on Israel mirror their positions on Iran, Israel's notorious foe; as Warren ran for senate in 2012, her campaign website falsely claimed Iran was "pursuing nuclear weapons" and stated that "[t]he United States must take the necessary steps to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon." Sanders, on the other hand, came under fire in 2016 for saying that the US should "move as aggressively as we can to normalize relations with Iran." In 2017, Sanders (along with Rand Paul) was one of only two senators to vote against authorizing additional sanctions against Iran; Warren voted in favor.

Similarly, last year Sanders was one of only seven Senators (Warren not being among them) to vote against a $17 billion increase in the military budget; at the time, Jeff Stein of The Washington Post noted that "[t]his appears to be the biggest military budget outside height of the Iraq War." When it comes to issues regarding the military and foreign affairs, there's no doubt that Warren is closer to the mainstream than Sanders, and that's not a good thing.

I remember back in 2013, Warren's first year in the senate, when Obama nominated John Brennan to be director of the CIA; Brennan had previously lied about civilian casualties from the administration's drone strike program, and I was disgusted at the idea that he might be put in charge of a powerful intelligence agency after so blatantly misleading people. Bernie Sanders voted against his confirmation—and Elizabeth Warren voted for it. That may have been my first real disenchantment with Warren, whom I'd been very enthusiastic about as she was running for the senate in 2012. Brennan went on to preside over the CIA's spying on Congress and to make excuses for the agency's past torture program before ascending to the level of #Resistance hero after Trump came to power. 

Sanders' stubborn insistence on remaining an Independent—even as he caucused with the Democrats in Congress and supported the party's presidential nominees—while a cause of resentment for many, is actually a good symbol of the quality in him that makes him a preferable candidate from my point of view. While I would by no means call his record perfect (or even close), he has been willing to vote as an Independent in a number of cases, such as on the military budget and sanctions bills I mentioned above. While I certainly don't begrudge Warren her decision to identify herself as a Democrat, it's simply true that she's closer to the party's establishment line than Sanders and, as I said, that's not a good thing.

There's also, I think, some legitimate reason to worry about her abilities as a politician. Her DNA test debacle is one instance of that, resulting in widespread mockery from the Right and condemnation from actual Native Americans. Her recent decision to frame climate change as a question of "military readiness" is another example of her ability to be rather tone-deaf. She has an unfortunate tendency to leave people toward the Left disenchanted in her attempts to appease the Right—attempts that it's easy to see from the start are unlikely to succeed. While Sanders has had his failings, he managed to become, for at least a time, the most popular political figure in the country despite openly identifying as a socialist, and seems able to connect with many different people in a way that I'm not convinced Warren is.

Despite my very real issues with Warren, I really don't want this to come off as a hit piece of any sort. She is still easily better than almost all of her opponents, and vastly better than the guy who's currently at the top of every national poll. She has also put out some genuinely laudable proposals lately. Certainly, no one should lose sight of that, nor do I want there to be some split in the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party. But it seems equally clear to me that Sanders is genuinely better than Warren pretty much across the board; on some issues, the differences are small, but they are pretty consistently in Sanders' favor. And I hope that discussions about the two candidates personally don't overshadow the real, and meaningful, differences in their politics.

Where Have All the Libertarians Gone?

Then-presidential candidate Ron Paul, addressing the Congressional Health Care Caucus (via CNN)

Let's take a journey back to the distant year of 2007. The campaign to decide who will replace the unpopular incumbent, George W. Bush, is well underway. One the Republican side options are plentiful, but one particular candidate boasts a unique status; that man's name is Ron Paul. He's managed to attract support on college campuses, bring in impressive fundraising hauls, and achieve a loyal following on the web. While he's a long-shot for the nomination, the ideology he represents—libertarianism—looks as if it may become a force to be reckoned with. Four years later, Paul runs for president again, and while he's a long-shot this time as well, he attracts impressive support from young voters in states like New Hampshire. It looks as if libertarianism may really be gaining traction.

So why is it that now it seems the libertarian movement (as it were) has all but totally dissolved? Well, some of the young voters who were taken with Ron Paul in his 2008 and 2012 runs have surely gone on to become Bernie supporters in 2016; other former libertarians have gone on to join the alt-right and/or support Donald Trump. Ron Paul's own son, Rand, ran in the 2016 Republican contest and failed to even achieve his father's cult following. Why was the seemingly widespread, if underground, support for libertarianism so fragile? 

To answer this question, we have to look at a few intertwining factors, as I will do here. Admittedly, a lot of what I'm about to write is conjecture, so take it with a grain of salt; but keep in mind, I am basing this off of what I've seen, even if it's not strictly scientific. The factors behind libertarianism's decline, in my estimation, are as follows: that two very different groups of people tend to be initially attracted to libertarianism; that many people in each group, for specific reasons which I'll explain, also have a tendency to end up drifting away from libertarianism after a while; and that libertarianism is an ideology that is ultimately really attractive in its own right to only a small number of people, again for reasons I'll lay out.

Let's start with an exploration of the two groups of people I mentioned. The first group is people who are more or less leftist in their sympathies, which is to say they have a genuine concern with systemic injustice and the rights of oppressed people around the world. These people are attracted to libertarianism because it opposes imperialism and needless wars, mass incarceration, the War on Drugs and other policies that negatively impact vulnerable people around the world. Many of the college students who were supportive of Ron Paul's candidacy in 2008 and 2012 surely fall into this group. It wasn't his free market economic policies that appealed to them; it wast that he wanted to end the War on Terror, legalize drugs, and end intrusive provisions of the PATRIOT Act.

So where does the problem arise? Well, the people in this group—whom we might refer to as "confused leftists"—are fundamentally collectivist in their outlook, in some sense. They think that we should care about more than just ourselves and our friends and the people in our particular in-groups; rather, we should care about the welfare of people around the world. This fundamentally collectivist impulse is, on its face, in contradiction with libertarianism's hyper-individualistic economic ideology: that the economy should be based on private property rights and each individual's pursuit of their own gain, and that we should privatize what common property presently exists. The only way to reconcile this collectivist, humanitarian impulse that we should care about the welfare of everyone with this atomistic free market ideology is to claim that a free market really will allow for the greatest possible freedom and well-being for everyone.

The thing is, this is a pretty difficult view to maintain. It's hard to see how abolishing all aid programs could possibly be to the benefit single parents, the physically and mentally handicapped, and other people who are at a disadvantage when it comes to competing in a market economy. It requires a great amount of faith to think that private charity would simply swoop in and save these people from destitution. And, furthermore, just about every proposal for helping poor and working-class people—Medicare for All, free college, etc.—is coming from the left, and demands that we expand, rather than reduce, the government's role in some respects. For many of these "confused leftists," economics may not have had much to do at all with what attracted them to libertarianism to begin with, and they may have never bought into the whole let's-deregulate-everything approach even as they appreciated Ron Paul's tirades against imperialism and the War on Drugs. So it's easy for many to drift away from libertarianism and towards, well, actual leftism, especially when a figure like Bernie Sanders comes along. Sanders, after all, has a good bit in common with Ron Paul—he, too, is a critic of the drug war, of the War on Terror, of NSA spying and the like—and his views on economics intuitively make a lot more sense, if you want to help the disadvantaged, than, say, converting Medicaid into a block-grant program.

The second group of people who are initially attracted to libertarianism is radically different from the first. These are people for whom the hyper-individualist, "survival of the fittest" nature of an unbridled free market is very appealing, and is, in fact, what attracts them to libertarianism. They have a burning hatred of socialism and collectivism in any form (and they define the terms very, very loosely), and the idea of an economy where the successful are free to hoard their money and spend it as they see fit is a very attractive one to them. For these people, the libertarian's worst enemy is not the neocon or the establishment politician (though they certainly dislike both), but the socialist. Sure, they have some views in common with leftists (at least until they abandon libertarianism altogether)—anti-imperialism, pro-legalization views on drugs—but the reason this sort of libertarian opposes mass incarceration or wars in the Middle East has little to do with a concern for the well-being of others. It's because unjust wars and restrictive laws violate property rights, and for this brand of libertarian—whom we might call a "nascent reactionary"—property rights are supreme because they justify selfishness. It's worth noting that a good number of these libertarians are anti-immigrant (unlike most of their "confused leftist" counterparts, I would venture to say), ostensibly on the grounds that immigrants are taking advantage of the welfare state and that immigration under a non-libertarian system amounts to "forced integration."

It's not hard to see why many of these nascent reactionaries either don't last as libertarians or continue to claim that they're libertarians while embracing right-wing "populists" like Donald Trump. When someone like Trump comes along, presenting himself as a bulwark against both the neoconservative Republican establishment and leftist "political correctness" (which the nascent reactionary opposes because it demands they make some sacrifice on behalf of the marginalized), they quickly overcome any concerns—real or pretended—about his authoritarian tendencies. Plus, their general selfishness slides easily into tribalism—an embrace not of their individuality, but of their "cultural identity," and accordingly a desire to protect "western culture" from all threats, inside and out. Right-wing authoritarians only propose to trample on the "property rights" of the Other: Muslims, immigrants, leftists, women (it's a safe bet that nascent reactionary libertarians are overwhelmingly male), LBGTQ+ people, etc. With manufactured panics about Political Correctness running amok on college campuses and Islam threatening western civilization, it's easy for the nascent reactionary to convince themselves that it's "us or them" and to stop caring at all about the rights of the Other. At that point they become full-blown reactionaries, no longer nascent.

I am not proposing that every libertarian falls into one of these two categories—and even those who do may very well continue to be (more than nominal) libertarians until the day they die, by successfully walking the tightrope and maintaining the challenging view that's essential to their libertarianism (for the "confused leftist," that a free market really will create a better world for all; for the "nascent reactionary," that one must truly respect the rights even of Muslims, feminists and communists). But the fact that so many people who are initially attracted to libertarianism end up treating it as simply a gateway drug to either leftism or reactionaryism highlights an interesting point.

I have certainly seen libertarians argue that their ideology is more consistent that liberalism or conservatism, and in a sense, they are correct; both liberals and conservatives do, in some cases, support government restrictions on "property rights" in the libertarian sense of the phrase, and in other cases, oppose such restrictions (conservatives seek to preserve the property rights of the rich by lowering their tax rate but support laws against drugs and abortions; liberals support greater personal freedom than conservatives but also support higher taxes on the rich and more regulations on big business). Libertarianism, on the other hand, consistently upholds property rights, whether it be your right to have an abortion or smoke marijuana or a CEO's right to pay their employees starvation wages. So on a theoretical plane, looking at everything through the lens of property rights, libertarianism is more consistent than its main competitors.

But most people don't really operate in the realm of abstract concepts like property rights, and it's difficult for them to truly attach much emotional significance to a notion that academic and legalistic. And, on this more common, human level, libertarianism is actually a radically inconsistent ideology, because it asks us to care deeply about the property rights of everyone around the world but to care little about their actual well-being. It's very difficult for most people to, at the same time, fervently support someone's right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion while simply shrugging it off as a necessary evil if they die of exposure because they were too poor to afford a place to live. For better or worse, the ideologies that have gained the most widespread support throughout history tend to lay their emphasis on people, in one way or another—either on the working people, or the "master race," or the citizens of Our Nation (whichever one it may be), or the adherents or Our Religion, or simply on all people, everywhere. Libertarianism, at least in its doctrinaire form (which is the form represented by figures like Ron Paul and, before him, Murray Rothbard) does not lay its emphasis on people; rather, it lays its emphasis on the notion of property and the right thereto. As different as they are, the confused leftist and nascent reactionary have in common that they see libertarianism as the path to the well-being of some group of people—for the leftist, humanity in general, and in particular the oppressed and marginalized; for the reactionary, themselves, and the people most like them. And both grow disenchanted when they begin to feel this isn't the case.

That is why, as a mass movement, libertarianism is almost certainly doomed to failure. Its concept of freedom is far too divorced from the actual well-being of any group that offers some strong sense of identity for a large number of people. One can feel a kinship with people around the world on the basis that we are all human beings, or one can feel a tribalistic kinship with the members of one's own race, religion, national group, etc.; but libertarianism would primarily benefit those who are able to do well in a free market economy, and even predicting with any certainty how one would fare in such a setup takes a reasonable amount of guesswork, meaning it's simply not a group that offers any strong sense of fellowship. The fact is that relatively few people feel personally aggrieved that the government involves itself in the economy to some extent, so it's rather more difficult to create widespread pro-free market solidarity than it is to create unity among the working class, or among marginalized groups in society—or, for that matter, to stir up animosity toward ethnic minorities and immigrants by appealing to notions of a shared culture or religion. In this respect, libertarianism's hyper-individualism is its downfall; for, whatever one thinks of individualism, it can hardly serve as a doctrine that unites the masses of humanity for the purpose of collective action.