Some notions of the political center or moderates, which, if taken too seriously by too many, can have very negative consequences:

1. It’s reducible to political moderates in the Democratic Party as well as higher ups in the DNC. Not the case. It’s a mass trend with considerable resonance across the country.

2. Its politics are frozen. No, they change under the impact of economic, political, and cultural shifts. The center today isn’t a carbon copy of the center of yesterday; too much has happened, not least the crash of 2008 and the discrediting of a mode of accumulation and the associated politics that engineered it. No Democrat in the current presidential primary is saying that we should stand still or pin our hopes on unfettered markets. Each of them advocates reforms, including the expansion of the public sector and public goods. Some obviously more than others.

3. It can’t defeat Trump and the authoritarian right on its own. Actually, that is true. But neither can the left. If we could, we would have done it long ago. For now and the foreseeable future, we’re codependent, even if the relationship is at times fraught and quarrelsome.

To say that Hillary won the popular vote in 2016 shouldn’t be cited to minimize or, worse still, dismiss the claim that women have a steeper climb to the corridors and chambers of political power than men due to sexism and misogyny. Similarly, to assert that more women are in Congress today than in the past isn’t an adequate rebuttal either.

Things have changed for the better in some ways in recent years, but the playing field isn’t level yet. We still live in is a gendered world. Another way to look at Hillary’s presidential run is to ask: Were it not for sexism and misogyny would she, not Trump, be in the White House?

In the rift between Warren and Sanders, the accent for their supporters should be on unity, not assigning blame.

The polls suggest that Elizabeth Warren’s support has slipped some in recent weeks. If so, I suspect, it has more to do with her gender than anything else. After all, winning the nomination and then the general election against Trump, is a more difficult climb for a woman than her male counterparts for what should be obvious reasons.

And yet, it strikes me that among some people who should know better there is a tendency to minimize this dynamic. It’s as if electing a woman, and in the case of Elizabeth Warren, a woman of outstanding progressive credentials, to the presidency for the first time in our country’s history, doesn’t encounter any gender specific barriers nor offer any historic opportunity. Neither seems to figure much, if at all, in their calculus.

One has to wonder if the thought that only a MAN can stand up to the “very manly” Trump enters into their (and many others) thinking at some level. It shouldn’t, but I’m afraid it does more than we might think. To what degree I’m not sure, but to simply dismiss this specific dynamic is not only folly, but harmful in the short and long term.

Here is an article on the politics of big policy ideas. It’s worth reading. As it pertains to the current presidential primary, Warren and Sanders have such ideas. They are needed not only if the country has any chance of addressing the structural problems — climate, wage and economic stagnation, economic and other forms of inequality, etc. — that unless addressed make the future problematic. But also in order to engage the American people and to change their perception of the role of an activist federal government.

I would be happy with either one as the nominee.