Please, Elizabeth Warren, Don’t Drop Out of the Primary
I don’t care what anyone says, I really want Elizabeth Warren to stay in the race. The quality of the debate and the national conversation on the issues will drop significantly if she pulls out. After South Carolina, all the major cable news channels and publications’ coverage presented this as a two candidate race, so that’s what it became, and that’s a major reason why Biden went from being a non-player to the frontrunner seemingly overnight. I hate it for her.
And anyone who says misogyny isn’t playing a role here is wrong. Warren has been consistently erased for months now in major cable news shows and the mainstream print media like The New York Times. And being a female candidate meant that she automatically had the odds stacked against her.
Please understand that I am not saying any one person as an individual is the issue — I’m saying that the issue is how our culture and our society is woven together based on historical legacies of misogyny, racism, ableism and homophobia, and thats the issue. It impacts everything and everyone whether they know it or not, and it certainly shapes how many people see Warren (and how my commentary is seen differently than a man’s). Every fabric of our society is built on these ideas; they shape how Warren is seen differently in this election, as automatically less “viable” of a candidate because of her gender. They are why the pundits on cable news (including MSNBC — shame on them) and the mainstream print media have basically ignored her from the jump, and all of this underlies why she did not do well yesterday.
I am sad to see this primary field shake out this way, from starting with so many young women & people of color in it, to this? I know Bernie & Biden are different but they’re both still old white men. And representation really does matter. It just does. Warren has been working closely with up and coming young leaders in our party who are people of color to shape her policy, like Julián Castro, and Ayanna Pressley. She has been publicly supported by the best writers and thinkers and artists and leaders of all ages, gender expressions, sexual orientations, and races, such as: Kimberle Crenshaw, who coined the concept of intersectionality (hello?! This is huge and says it all — Warren is truly writing deeply thoughtful policy that attends to all the intersecting issues and identities that shape everything else, and that matters!!), Roxane Gay, Megan Rapinoe, John Legend, Jonathan Van Ness, Janelle Monae; and she has the trust and support of the leaders of our social movements (and this is what I care about the most), such as: Patrisse Cullors (coendorsed Sanders too, to be fair) who co-founded Black Lives Matter and Jaclyn Corin, gun control activist and co-founder of March For Our Lives. All of this matters because a candidate who doesn’t look at issues through an intersectional lens and shape her policy around those ideas isn’t going to fix what is wrong in this country. And a candidate who doesn’t have the potential to unite this party like Warren does will lose in November. She is the unity candidate.
I know Warren may feel she has to drop out and she’s making that decision carefully. At the absolute least, I hope she’ll stay in until after the March 15th debate because that’s when she really gets a chance to shine. That’s when she shows us the value of voting for a candidate because we believe in them. Right now most Democrats are voting for the so-called safe bet and that’s a vote that at least partly comes from fear. A vote for Warren is a vote that comes from hope, courage, and the joy of finally being able to vote for a candidate we truly believe in, and that’s a powerful force. Of course we’re all scared living in Trump’s America, and people are always afraid of change especially at the scale that Warren is proposing, but I truly believe in her and her vision — she’s a pragmatic progressive who I have no doubt would actually be able to get all of these things done for the people. She’s a once in a generation kind of candidate. I don’t care what the numbers say. She’s the best candidate and we all deserve to see Warren stay in this race. I’m with her til she/(if she) drops out.
