Why This Former Clinton Supporter Voted for Bernie Sanders

NOTE: I originally posted this piece at Daily Kos on February 25, 2020, in advance of Super Tuesday. While Vice President Biden unexpectedly cleaned house on Super Tuesday, my point remains in that he lost the Latino vote to Bernie Sanders in delegate-rich prizes such as Texas and California for the reasons I lay out below. —Elisa

I am no pollster, political pundit, or even a political science major. What I am is a tired, underemployed and unmarried middle-aged mother, exactly the person who is qualified to say without reservation that Senator Bernie Sanders will win the Democratic nomination and beat Donald J. Trump in November.

In fact, after my first choice, Senator Elizabeth Warren, landed in fourth place in her neighboring state of New Hampshire, I voted for Sen. Sanders absentee ballot in California. Before mailing in my ballot, I googled polls and found that out of Senators Sanders and Warren, he was the favorite progressive candidate to beat the moderates in the field.

The 2020 election is indeed about the suitability of Trump to lead the nation’s highest office. But it is more than that. It is about what the billionaire Trump represents: a corrupt capitalism that has failed tens of millions of Americans, including this tired momma. Capitalism worked for me as long as I was married to a bread-winning man and/or employed full-time and could tap into health benefits. Sanders and Warren are the only two candidates who have articulated an alternative vision to this “winner-takes-all” economic system in the way of a social democracy.

Unlike the crony capitalism that we have, which is based on rewarding people who already have money and/or rich people giving jobs to people they already know, a social democracy would be more of a meritocracy, driven by everyday people, and not simply those with the ability to fundraise for a seat in Congress or the Presidency — or even a job at a non-profit organization. A social democracy would ensure that the wealthiest pay their fair share of taxes so that we can all have healthcare coverage and a basic standard of living.

It would be an awesome day in America when those of us who are unmarried and lack a full-time job, would not feel like we have to land a spouse or open up a GoFund me account for an unexpected medical expense!

Anti-Medicare-For-All moderates like Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar continuously excoriate Sanders and Warren for aiming to take away 20 million Americans’ private insurance plans. Well, guess what? There are 22 million of usconsidered underemployed in the United States, meaning that we do not have a full-time position to attain private insurance in the first place, even though, according to job search Monster.com, we are looking for full-time work. We easily cancel out the Americans allegedly having love affairs with their private insurers. We reside all across the country from the forgotten rust belt to major coastal cities saturated with “gig-economy” jobs like Uber and Care.com.

As I have discovered in my own job search, many of us are continuously told that we are “over-qualified” — what the heck do you even say to this? — or simply unable to win the job-search Hunger Games, in which dozens of good and highly qualified applicants are competing for that one middle-management position with family-sustaining wages and health benefits. Caregivers who put in a full load of unpaid labor — but are so important to keep our economy humming — are the least likely to be hired. Fathers are the likeliest to be hired as they have help at home and do not have to take breaks from their careers.

The reality is crony capitalism devalues caregiving aka “women’s work.” But also due to decades of austerity or public program cuts so that wealthy people could get tax breaks to create jobs (ha!) and neoliberal policies like forcing the public to pay for private health insurance, lucrative full-time positions have become precious resources for an elite few. It’s an all-or-nothing economy with those gainfully employed also receiving health benefits and paid sick days. Even “part-time” workers who clock in 30 hours a week are shit out of luck on all benefits, including health care, their paltry wages eaten up on Obama’s private insurance marketplace.

Based on their policy proposals, Sanders and Warren know what’s happening on the ground, and are speaking to this in the way of increasing the federal minimum wage and Medicare For All — so that part-time wages are not eaten up by monthly premiums. As the frontrunner and the candidate who has best articulated the savagery of this “all-or-nothing” economy, Sanders will easily clinch the Democratic nomination and cruise to victory in November.

Now, before I get slammed for socialism, check this out. Unlike Sanders, Trump is the one rubbing elbows with former Soviet spy Vladimir Putin, and “fell in love” with North Korea’s brutal communist dictator Kim Jon Un. Contrary to what he has promised unemployed coal power plant and manufacturing workers, he has not delivered anything other than despair: massive underemployment, falling wages, and an uptick in opioid and heroin addiction and suicide rates. The biggest losers in this “winner-take-all” are rugged white Americans themselves.

I just wrote a book about leveraging the collective power of the U.S. Latinx/a/o/Hispanic community, and we and other communities of color tend to live in multigenerational or extended family households that takes the edge off of poverty and loneliness. But, politically, an interesting phenomenon is also taking root in our communities: democratic socialism.

I interviewed two young Latinx members of the Democratic Socialists of America — one of the organizations that influenced New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — and they said that they had an easy time speaking to voters in places like…Texas.

“Our organization hasn’t really had issues talking to working class people because we are all working class people. We talk about fighting wage theft or about a living wage, about paid sick time, about Medicare for all. These are demands that people want. People are angry at their bosses, their landlords, and are starting to see that the root of their problems, really, is a billionaire class who makes life hard for everyday people on an everyday basis.” — Kristian Hernandez, a tejana — a Mexican-American woman born and raised in Texas — and former two-term co-chair of DSA’s North Texas Chapter

Hernandez and DSA’s Latinxs may be onto something. A measure of how effective this new working-class, Latinx-powered democratic socialism may found in the polls, and also broader public support. For the first time in 10 years since Gallup started asking the question, Democrats have a more positive view of socialism than capitalism. In an August 13, 2018 poll, Gallup found that 47 percent of Democrats viewed capitalism positively, down from 56 percent in 2010. Almost three out of five Democrats, 57 percent, viewed socialism favorably.

The trend was driven largely by young adults aged 18 to 29. Similarly, a spring 2016 poll by the Harvard Institute of Politics found that “Socialism is typically more supported by 18- to 20-year-olds (41%), Democrats (50%), Clinton voters (54%), Hispanics (38%) and African Americans (39%)” whereas “Capitalism is more likely to be supported by people who have graduated from college (56%), whites (43%), men (49%), people who live in the South (46%) and the West (45%), and members of the GOP (54%).” Note that even support among capitalism’s champions is waning from the days of the Cold War when that economic framework was viewed as the only acceptable solution to the totalitarianism of the Soviet bloc. The very economic structure of the United States has become grounds to contest for power — and Latinxs are leading the way!

In November 2019, a poll conducted by The New York Times Upshot and Siena College found Sanders leading the Democratic field among Latinx voters in six states. One of those states was California, which is home to the nation’s largest Latinx population and will hold one of the earlier primaries this March 3rd.

It was a relief to know that I am not crazy to feel like I am competing in a rigged system. I agree with Trump that the system is rigged — just not for workers and people seeking work! And we Latinxs are the kings and queens of the gig economy, heavily represented in sectors such as caregiving, domestic work, construction and culinary. Many of us are underemployed and seeking more stable positions, far outnumbering the people who can afford to be “moderate.”

As of January 2020, a whopping 53 million workers — or 44 percent of all workers — are underemployed and can barely make ends meet on median earnings of $18,000 per year, according to data by the Brookings Institute. Two-thirds of these workers are in the prime of their earning years, 25 to 54 years of age.

So many of us, even in “progressive” cities like San Francisco, are living proof of this predicament: too rich to qualify for any public assistance and too poor to live in the Bay Area. In my case, I do not qualify for any Obamacare subsidies for my $525-per-month premiums because I am receiving child and spousal support. While I am so very grateful for this help that so many of my single-mom friends and family members do not receive — they are really struggling! — I am also in this awkward “no-man’s-land” in that my income is too high for any aid, but not enough in the San Francisco Bay Area where a burrito or a hamburger will cost $15 with taxes and a tip.

While I would love nothing more to see a woman president — admittedly, a major reason I voted for Clinton in 2016 — I see a very difficult path for Warren. If history is any indicator, momentum, especially in the early contests of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, is important. (I would love to be wrong!)

Like Sanders, Warren gets it. She, too, was once a single mother who had to weigh the costs of childcare with full-time work. She understands that policies need to work for everyone, and not just the wealthy, married or shrinking population of sustainable wage earners.

That is why Sanders, who speaks to these issues but has the momentum, got my vote.