Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders greets people at an Amazon Labor Union rally on April 24, 2022, in New York City. Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, traveled to Staten Island to meet with workers who successfully organized the first union at an Amazon facility in the United States. (David Dee Delgado | Getty Images)
In previous election cycles, I was fortunate to sit down for long conversations with candidates for a range of offices, from local New Hampshire school boards to president of the United States. There were true public servants among them, who I know genuinely believed in their ability to change things for the better. They would offer these bold ideas that were much more likely to have been sketched out at a kitchen table than at the feet of party leaders – passion rendered as action. Sometimes those visions lacked refinement, but they were rarely wanting for humanity.
But there were plenty of other candidates, especially in up-ballot races, who possessed a troubling trait: They seemed to care about the idea of people more than people themselves.
I’m not sure whether that was part of the problem for some Democrats nationally this time around – I’ll leave that for the folks who make a living dissecting all manner of political victories and defeats. But a campaign based on service to “the idea of people” cannot ever be anything other than inauthentic.
And there’s an electoral and policy price to be paid.
For example, there are things – disconnections – I find endlessly frustrating about politics in New Hampshire. I think it stinks that we can’t have a broader conversation about revenue during election season when so many folks are crushed under the weight of property taxes. But candidates on the right have established a winning strategy: They plug their ears and mindlessly repeat the phrase “New Hampshire Advantage” or, of late, “Don’t Mass Up New Hampshire.” They talk about the trickling down of immense corporate and individual wealth like Linus spreading word about The Great Pumpkin, and in the end we’re all Sally, bereft and disillusioned in the patch. Meanwhile, our broken school funding system – the other side of the property-tax coin – should be a perennial top campaign issue for both parties, but somehow it always gets pushed down toward the bottom of to-do lists for too many officeholders and office-seekers.
Above all, it’s troubling that elections seem to be won and lost not so much by the boldness and efficacy of new ideas but how effectively the opposing party is prosecuted.
There are true “people politicians” who break through occasionally – Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez come to mind. They are more than artful messengers of a brand of progressivism that is perpetually disregarded; their policy prescriptions reliably reflect real need – real people troubles – and are issued with an urgency rooted in humanity. They are authentic populists, whereas the Donald Trump crowd are variably skilled opportunists playing at populism but delivering only – and only nominally – for a disgruntled, fearful base.
Although the “people politicians” are routinely dismissed by the center and right, their voices are critical – and maybe now more than ever – to the national conversation. Policy must be moved away from “the idea of people” and toward the people themselves – the prioritization of economic fairness, investment in public education, equitable access to health care, and committed environmental stewardship.
And it is happening in pockets. For all of my political frustrations, there are efforts here that I find truly inspiring. The community and legislative movement to address PFAS in New Hampshire – the dangerous “forever chemicals” – is one of them. So is the organizing around the proposed landfill in Dalton – and the growing conversation taking place about waste in general in New Hampshire. For every New Hampshire lawmaker dawdling over social media-driven conspiracy theories, there are others working to creatively address our child care problem, our mental health care problem, our housing problem.
We need more of them. Exploiting people’s troubles and fears is, unfortunately, a great way to get elected to public office, but it’s a useless skill for actual public service.
In the months to come, I urge you to take note of the one-trick ponies who are not interested in actually fixing anything, and they are easy enough to spot. They’re the ones who will still be loudly campaigning against their political foes when they should be quietly and diligently working to help the people – all of them.