Senator Elizabeth Warren’s withdrawal from the Democratic presidential campaign would have been a gut punch for many of us whenever it happened, but I am guessing that many or even most of her supporters were hoping against hope that her campaign would survive Super Tuesday. The suddenness of her withdrawal against our high expectations is particularly disorienting, but so is the sense that she has been swept aside by political and even historical forces that, at least for the time being, threaten to diminish the significance of her campaign and her ideas. I believe she would have made the best president out of all the Democratic candidates, and while we must respect the choices of our fellow citizens, I can’t avoid feeling that we’ve thrown away the opportunity to elect the right person for this moment in our history.
Instead, we’re left with two men who feel distinctly out of step with our time. Joe Biden, who has wanted to be president since forever but failed in his attempts to do so, was lifted to redemption by Barack Obama, and passed on a chance to run in 2016, is now poised to finally achieve his dream — but at an age that sees his faculties somewhat diminished, befuddled by a political history that parallels the compromised spirit of the Democrats over the past 40 years, and with an appeal that seems rooted more in restoration than progress. Likewise, Bernie Sanders, for all that he’s catalyzed millions of Americans to widen their expectations of our democracy and economy, feels committed to a vision imported from another age, even if in its rough outlines it fits the needs of our time.
Of all the damage Donald Trump has done to the United States, some of the worst is his reinforcing many Americans’ belief that a woman is not ready to be president, or is the wrong choice to stand against our arch-misogynist chief executive. To me, this is a demonstration of the trauma he’s inflicted on the nation — the way he’s gotten inside our heads and psyched us out. Too many Americans saw Hillary Clinton when they looked at Elizabeth Warren, and were afraid to repeat what they saw as the error of sending a woman to dispatch the monster. But to me, the lesson of Trump’s election has always been the complete opposite: to heal, we needed to empower a woman as our next presidential candidate, to start to undo the unbearable stain he has inflicted on American life. Saying that a woman cannot win against Trump, even if one blames this on the preferences of other, less enlightened voters, perversely validates the very misogyny that our current president embodies, and negates one of democracy’s greatest powers: our ability to break open new futures and possibilities by collectively agreeing to do so.
I realize that misogyny alone didn’t take down Warren’s campaign. She didn’t connect to African-American and other minority voters as much as she needed to, and wasn’t able to broaden her appeal beyond a certain highly educated and liberal socio-economic group. Ideologically, she was also competing against a Bernie juggernaut build up over a previous presidential campaign. I wish the millions of Democrats who have voted so far had given Warren more of a chance, and had questioned their assumptions about who’s the best candidate to take on Trump. More than any other candidate, Warren knows what needs to be done to fix our government and economy, and, just as importantly, how crucial it will be not to let the corruption of the Trump administration slip away without consequence. She understands what’s needed at a level of sophistication and detail that is simply lacking in either of the two remaining Democratic contenders. I suspect that many of us will judge the choices of the eventual Democratic nominee by a not-entirely-fair comparison with what Warren would have done.