Dear Moderate Democrats and Apoliticals…You Don’t Get Credit.
Kayla Curry
After weeks of canvassing, phone banking, and tabling for the Bernie Sanders campaign and now, with the Missouri Primary behind us, I have been finding myself frustrated and impassioned by the results. Biden won an overwhelming amount of states, and the most vexing part is knowing people either voted in spite of Bernie rather than wholeheartedly for Biden or arguably worse, they didn’t vote at all.
“Fight for someone you don’t know.” This is the encompassing message of Bernie Sanders's 2020 presidential campaign and honestly, of his whole life’s work. Whether you support Bernie and his policies or not, this slogan should be internalized by everyone, but more realistically, anyone who believes in equality. Besides the avid Trump supporters and conservatives, some of Sanders’s biggest critics are democratic moderates and those who simply don’t care for politics, also known as apoliticals. To me, it is hard to understand the apathy of those who don’t feel the same sense of urgency for change as I do.
Personally, I have grown used to the attacks from the right, but when I see those who claim to be on my side take actions that completely contradict that claim, it’s exasperating. As a self-identifying liberal and a strong Bernie supporter, I want to ask those who identify as apolitical or moderate why they believe neutrality or centrism are fair pillars to live by. Here are a few reasons why I believe they aren’t.
Just because you’re doing fine, doesn’t mean everyone is.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said it best, the biggest threat to freedom is “the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice…”
Being privileged allows you to be content with the way things are, and if you’re compliant because you would rather enjoy a “negative peace,” you’re the oppressor. If you are a moderate or consider yourself to be apolitical because “politics are too complicated” or “politics aren’t worth losing friends over,” you have already chosen a side. Being silent or nonchalant during a defining moment is it’s own political stance. You’ve chosen the side of the oppressor, and you’ve chosen not to speak up for those who have no choice but to keep fighting for their most basic rights and necessities.
I am a person of color. I am a woman. I am bisexual. These are a few parts of who I am that could mean I am discriminated against, but this doesn’t mean I am not also privileged in some ways. I have a place to live. I am fortunate enough to go to college. I do not have to worry about experiencing the harmful discrimination and legal attacks that my trans friends do. I am privileged in many ways, but in others, I am at a great disadvantage.
Privilege comes in many forms. For example, you may be a white woman who lives in poverty, who gets paid pennies on the dollar compared to your male counterparts, but your whiteness is still a privilege you have that a black man with a white-collar job doesn’t. In a position such as this, it may seem impossible to consider yourself privileged, but privilege doesn’t always mean you have an easy life. It just means your skin color, your sexuality, or another trait aren’t among the things that make your life harder.
No matter who you are, rich, poor, black, white, straight, LGBTQ, able-bodied or not, you are privileged and unprivileged in a number of ways. It is important to recognize what ways we can help others, as well as how others can help us. Until all of us have rights, we are morally obligated to each other to help one another unshackle the chains that hold us back from living a dignified life. That should not seem too radical.
2. Issues shouldn’t have to affect you directly for you to care.
It always infuriates me when I see tweets about moderates or conservatives changing their mind on an issue because it finally affected them in some personal way. Knowing someone else is being affected should be enough to want to make a change, but in many cases, it seems not to be so. The apathy I witness on a daily basis is frightening.
As an Asian American from a working-class family, I know what it’s like to have grown up with parents who worked to live rather than lived to work. I know the burning feeling of embarrassment and anger that bubbles up inside my chest anytime someone calls my family “chinks.”
So of course, I believe in a federal living wage of $15 an hour. I believe in standing up for issues that disproportionately affect people of color like myself, such as lack of affordable healthcare, mass incarceration, and harmful immigration policies.
But let’s say I was from a middle class, white family. I have never had to worry about accessing healthcare. My parents have never had to think about what would happen if they had to take sick leave because they work a white-collar job that provides handsome benefits.
Nothing should change in this case. Yes, my circumstances and my perspective are much different, but my empathy for others should be immovable. In fact, in this hypothetical scenario, my privileges and opportunities make me an invaluable asset when it comes to advocating for the issues that affect those in less fortunate circumstances than I, so I should do all I can to help lift up the voices of those who are screaming to be heard. I might be perfectly content with how the government works for me, but when others are frustrated and angry because it’s not working for them, I should be right next to them, frustrated and angry too.
3. There is nothing revolutionary about upholding the status quo.
Settling for the bare minimum may seem like a viable option, but as we’ve established, when you have the bare minimum, there will always be people who will not even have that much. This is not to say that we may ever live in a world where everyone has everything they need, but if we don’t strive for that, then we will most certainly never even come close to getting there.
In our government today, it need not be said that the stiff dichotomy between “realists” and “radicals” is just as much an obstacle to the implementation of policy as the divide between Republicans and Democrats. This being said, negotiation is key in creating policies that work. Moderates who believe the middle is the best starting point forget about checks and balances. Progressives like myself believe in our “radical” ideas wholeheartedly, but we don’t endorse candidates like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren thinking that all of our wishes will come true. We support them because they believe we can do better.
If you start negotiating from the left, then eventually our government can find a more progressive “middle ground,” but continuing to choose moderate candidates that end up negotiating more towards the right is what brought us a Trump administration in the first place. Our votes for legislators should not be based on the sole criteria of them having a "D" next to their name.
To the moderates and apoliticals, settling for the most electable or for the most centrist candidate or simply not thinking about it are not options for many of us, which should eliminate them as options for yourselves too. Things can be better than they are now.
From the Populist Movement in the 1880s to the Civil Rights Era in the 1960s, our history is built on radical ideas, enlightened thoughts, and revolutions powered by people who refused to settle for less than what they knew they deserved. Our current political climate calls for a contemporary version of this approach, and those who sit idly by will only hinder the change that is long overdue.
To the moderates and apoliticals, right now is history in the making, and when big change inevitably happens, you will not get to stand beside us and take the credit.