How Not to Talk Millennials Out of Supporting Bernie

I recently came upon an article titled Five Things Millennials Should Understand About Constitutional Conservatism. As a Millennial myself, I decided to click through and see if the author, fellow Millennial Mary Ramirez, had anything to say that I hadn’t heard before. In her article, Ramirez speaks to Millennials who support Bernie Sanders’ candidacy, seeking to convince them that Bernie’s proposals would limit their rights while constitutional conservatism guarantees their rights.

Ramirez starts by reminding Millennials how much they longed to be “out from under Mom and Dad’s thumb” as teenagers. Then she ties it into constitutional conservatism as follows:

So let me ask you this: if you couldn’t stand being told what to do, where to go, and otherwise how to live under your parents’ authority—what makes you think having an all-powerful government to do the exact same thing on an infinitesimally bigger scale is any different?

Here’s what I’m getting at: Millennials love Bernie Sanders.

Let me clearer: Millennials love Bernie Sanders, the unapologetic socialist running for president.

Socialism is pretty simple: It’s basically varying degrees of wealth redistribution, mandated and controlled by the government. And, there’s usually a great deal of cultural engineering thrown in there too.

Throughout this article, Ramirez is going to conflate a lot of things. For example, no one wants a Big Brother government a la 1984, not Millennials, not Bernie Sanders, not anyone. No one is asking for a government like China’s, either, or like the Soviet Union under Stalin and his successors. We know damn well that governments can be dictatorial and abusive. We’ve all read dystopian novels and watched dystopian films. We cheered with Katniss when she took down the Capitol in the Hunger Games trilogy, for gracious sakes. We get it—government can be very, very bad.

But Ramirez makes the mistake of assuming that government is always bad, or at the very least always highly problematic, and that less government is always better than more government. This is not at all evident to me, and in fact, it’s pretty evidently false. Government is nothing more and nothing less than a tool—a tool that can be used for good or for evil, depending on who wields it and how. That there are sometimes abuses does not erase the potential of government to do good.

But let’s talk about Ramirez’ analogy. When teenagers talk about wishing they didn’t have to follow their parents’ rules, the rules they’re talking about tend to be very different from those involved in the sort of government expansion many Millennials now want to see. Millennials don’t want the government telling them where they can go and who they can see, a la the parents of teenagers. Millennials (or at least the Millennials Ramirez is trying to reach in her article) want the government to provide affordable healthcare, relief from college loan debt, and more job opportunities. Ramirez’ description of the programs Bernie is advocating is also disingenuous—it only sounds big and scary when you use words like “wealth redistribution” rather than words like “government-funded healthcare” or “affordable college tuition.”

Ramirez’ central thesis appears to be that government handouts (which is how she seems to see things like single-payer healthcare or student debt relief) always comes with strings that require sacrificing freedoms. She seems to see this as common sense, as something that doesn’t even need explaining or proving, and that’s probably the primary weak spot of her argument. Yes, a governmental system that provides affordable healthcare and college must of necessity get the money somewhere, and that means taxes. But there is a world of difference between being required to pay taxes and being required to ask your parents before you go out (and in case you haven’t noticed, this is the problem I have with her analogy).

Ramirez could stick to warning Millennials that these programs would require tax increases, which is true, but instead she wants to argue something else—she wants Millennials to know that these programs mean giving up their freedoms.

Bernie Sanders preaches a very clear message of solutions to what we’re all experiencing—especially those of us just now coming of age, and who have no concept of anything but a crappy economy and crippling, burdensome debt.

His promises bring hope to a generation that’s scared to death about its future.

He talks a lot about all the free stuff you’re going to GET.

(And for the record, we could cut the entire military and tax everyone who makes more than $1 million at 100 percent and still not be able to pay for it all—but that’s another story.)

But have you ever really thought about what you’re going to have to give up to get it?

Probably not, since you’ve likely been told it’s conservatism (specifically, constitutional conservatism) and its stodgy religious tenants and insipid obsession with rugged individuality that’ll force you to give stuff up.

Is it, now? Let’s take a look:

Notice that Ramirez makes it clear that she is not focusing here on taxes or what the programs Bernie promises would cost—she mentions taxes and cost and then says “that’s another story.” What she wants to talk about here is not taxes and costs but rather freedoms. She wants to convince Millennials that constitutional conservatism will protect their freedoms while Bernie’s promises threaten their freedoms. Does she succeed? Let’s read on.

1. Constitutional Conservatism Means Your Rights Are Protected. Guaranteed.

We talk a lot about the Constitution—and how its recognition of inherent rights is what makes this whole thing so unique. See, just like Sen. Ben Sasse brilliantly put it, “most governments in the past said ‘might makes right, and the king has all the power, and the people are dependent subjects.’ The American Founders say ‘no, God gives us rights by nature, and government is just our shared project to secure those rights.’ Government is not the author or source of those rights.”

We also talk about it being a static document. Why? Because if it’s a living, breathing document—are your rights really inherent? If it’s moldable and pliable to whatever’s the cause du jour, are the rights you have today for CERTAIN the rights you’ll have tomorrow?

Where’s your guarantee?

Just remember, to get Bernie’s free stuff (which isn’t remotely free), you’re going to do have to do a lot of constitutional twisting and molding.

Good god. If the Constitution were in fact a static document, and if in fact we assumed the rights laid out by the founding fathers were absolute and unchanging, we would still have slavery. But there’s more than that going on here. If God gives us rights, and not the government, why put so much emphasis on the Constitution? Shouldn’t we instead be talking about what rights God does or does not give? Why would you assume that the founding fathers knew perfectly which rights these were? If you want to argue that God inspired the Constitution, you have a very serious problem—namely, that God clearly doesn’t think people of color have the right not to be slaves.

And actually, if we want to go back to the time when the Constitution was written, it’s worth mentioning that married women did not have a legal identity, and could not own property, oh and also that women couldn’t vote. In fact, only white men who owned property could vote. And then there’s the whole Native American genocide thing. Yeah, that. I have to say, I for one am very glad that our rights—and the Constitution—have not been static.

But more than this, I want to know what rights Ramirez is talking about when she says that constitutional conservatism means our rights are “protected” and “guaranteed.” For example, many Millennials (and others) see healthcare as a right, and some even see food and shelter as a right. We as a society also see education as a right, though that right is at this point generally applied only to elementary and secondary education and not to postsecondary education. Constitutional conservatism absolutely does not protect these rights. Under constitutional conservatism, you have freedom of speech, freedom of belief, freedom of press, freedom from warrantless search, and the right to a fair trial, but also the freedom to starve to death or to die of untreated cancer.

Ramirez would have her readers think constitutional conservatives care about rights while others don’t, but this is severely misleading. The Millennials she is focusing on here also believe in freedom of speech, freedom of belief, freedom of press, freedom from warrantless search, the right to a fair trial, and other rights that constitutional conservatives champion, it’s just that they don’t think our rights stop there. They—we—also believe that LGBTQ people have the right not to be discriminated against, that children have the right to an education, and that all people have the right to healthcare, food, and shelter.

2. Constitutional Conservatism Means a Government Let’s You Keep More of Your Money.

We don’t think all taxes are evil. We think punitive taxes are evil.

At what point in a person’s professional life do they shift from being deserving of their income, to being unfairly in possession of it? Is it $150,000 a year; $500,000 a year; $1 million a year? What’s the offending figure, and who decides?

How is it fair that top earners pay astronomical percentage rates just because, while it’s UNFAIR to suggest we all pay a flat percentage of our income for a government we all use?

But, that’s the only way to even come close to dreaming of paying for all the free things Bernie’s offering—stick the “rich” (however that’s defined) for as much as we can.

So compassionate. Much understanding.

I’m really not sure how to respond to this one except to say that it ought to be self-evident that those who have more should be able to pay more in taxes than those who have less. I absolutely agree that there is such a thing as taxing too much, and I do think conversations about how Bernie’s proposals would be funded are absolutely merited, but Ramirez is coming out against progressive taxation altogether, and frankly, that’s pretty much the definition of heartless.

Look, my husband is in a STEM field that should pay quite well if we ever make it out of this barren wasteland called graduate school. In the next five to ten years, we anticipate that our combined income will put us into the top 20%, and perhaps eventually into the top 10%. I know that means we will pay more as a percentage in taxes than we do now, and I’m glad of that. My husband and I are part of the greater society and benefit from state education funding, roads, sanitation, police, and much more. That we should pay more because we are able to pay more is not unfair, it’s reasonable.

One more note. Ramirez headlines this section by promising Millennials that constitution conservatism lets them keep more of their money, but she then comes out not only against high taxes but also against progressive taxation, apparently without realizing that the flat tax she recommends would mean the poor would keep less of their money. This seems like a strange oversight. She may be assuming that Millennials are not poor, but given Millennials’ concerns about jobs and college loan debt, I don’t think that’s a fair assumption to make—and even if it is, she’s so interested in reducing taxes on the rich that she doesn’t even seem to realize that she’s screwing the poor.

My husband and I married before we finished our undergraduate degrees, and soon headed off to graduate school with a baby in tow. We weren’t the sort of poor that works three jobs and still can’t make rent, and being in grad school meant that our relative poverty was in some sense voluntary and had an end in sight. Still, things were tight, especially with the cost of childcare. And you know what? Given how low our combined income was, combined with our status as students and our ability to claim child tax credits, we paid very little if anything in taxes for several years, and that was a godsend. Ramirez would like to see that change for families in situations like ours, and for millions of other low-income families just scraping by.

So let’s get this straight. Ramirez is not simply arguing for lower taxes overall, she’s for lowering taxes on the rich and raising them on the poor. She needs to at least be honest about that.

3. Constitutional Conservatism Means Actual Concern For The Poor.

There’s nothing wrong with needing a helping hand when there’s nowhere else to turn. But here’s the bottom line: We don’t want people trapped in an endless cycle of government benevolence where they are dependent on the government to give them more; dependent on the government to force some employer to pay them more; dependent on the government to force that employer to provide them with the benefits they need.

We hear a lot about what the government should give to the poor. When we do hear about how the poor will be raised up OUT of welfare? OUT of a minimum wage job? OUT of a Medicaid situation?

And this isn’t all just about the money…

Ahem. The entire point of welfare is to lend a hand when people need it and help people out of poverty. In fact, only 15% of AFDC recipients stay on welfare for five or more continuous years. In other words, being on welfare longterm is fairly rare. Welfare dependency is largely a myth. The problem is not being “trapped in an endless cycle of government benevolence where they are dependent on the government,” the problem is being trapped in a cycle of poverty where the family lacks the resources and knowledge needed to catapult their child out of poverty and into the middle class. Government programs are designed to ensure against absolute deprivation and to provide opportunities for getting out of poverty. Are they perfect? No. Could they be improved? Yes. But let’s not pretend no one cares about raising people out of poverty.

Also, WTF is with Ramirez both deriding people for being “dependent on the government to force some employer to pay them more” and saying that we never hear about how the poor should be raised up “OUT of a minimum wage job”? How in the heck is a person barely making it on a minimum wage job supposed to see their situation improve without (a) the government raising the minimum wage or (b) having access to affordable postsecondary education (one of the handouts Ramirez keeps talking about)?

While we’re on the subject, what exactly is “a Medicaid situation”? For several years after beginning of graduate school, my husband and I had our children on Medicaid. In my state, every family up to 200% of the poverty rate qualifies to have their children on state Medicaid. If your income rises above that (as ours eventually did), you get bumped off of Medicaid. In other words, you get out of “a Medicaid situation” by making a higher income. And you know what? I’d love it if everyone who is poor could simply make more money, but without raising the minimum wage or providing affordable education to help people qualify for higher-paying jobs or creating new high-paying jobs, that’s not going to just happen. But also? There’s nothing wrong with Medicaid. I wish they would expand it to all children, honestly. It’s a truly excellent program, and I miss it.

So let me ask you this. What is exactly Ramirez talking about when she says constitution’ conservatism “means actual concern for the poor”? In the paragraphs following this statement, she talks about not wanting people trapped in a cycle of government dependency and asks why we don’t hear more about raising the poor out of poverty, but, well, that’s it. That’s all she says. Where is the concern for the poor she’s talking about? There’s concern about the government providing welfare and concern about the government raising minimum wage, but what is her solution for the poor, exactly? Work more jobs? Just try harder? Ramirez doesn’t provide any reason for thinking the poor would be better off with a lack of government programs and action, and that renders her utterly unconvincing.

4. Constitutional Conservatism Means You Choose How to Run Your Life.

Look, we don’t care about who you’re sleeping with. I mean, sure, many of us may have religious convictions about it, but really, we largely don’t care. We may try to convince you of that conviction, but ultimately it’s your business. We also don’t care if you want to celebrate that love with a big, beautiful ceremony and party.

But is it really constitutionally, justifiably fair to force someone whose religious beliefs say otherwise to lend their personal business, property or talent to it? And is it constitutionally justifiable to force a religion to redefine its institution because society has decided it’s no longer that religion’s business?

And it’s not just about marriage and homosexuality. When it’s ok to tell people that they MUST not only accept a certain view, but set their own aside in the process, who says where it all ends? And if you don’t have a Constitution that backs up a set of stationary rights, (see No. 1) what are your rights at all?

I . . . what?

I actually know plenty of constitutional conservatives who think bans on sodomy were totally constitutional and that Lawrence v. Texas was wrong, so I’m so not on board with the assertion that constitutional conservatives “don’t care about who you’re sleeping with.” But we’ll leave that one aside for now.

The rest of this reads as though it’s written in code. Ramirez says she’s fine with gay people having a “big, beautiful ceremony and party.” Translation: she’s against gay marriage, but doesn’t have a problem with private commitment ceremonies. So much for rights. Next she says businesses should be allowed to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples. Awesomesauce. Does she also believe businesses should be allowed to discriminate against people of color, I wonder? I’m afraid to ask. Finally, Ramirez says that it’s not okay to “force a religion to redefine its institution”—i.e. marriage—“because society has decided it’s no longer that religion’s business.” First off, no one is forcing religious institutions to change how they define marriage. Secondly, marriage as instituted by the government is a legal contract. Does she want to end that?

Despite what Ramirez appears to believe, the government is not telling people what to believe. People are free to be bigots. They are not, however, free to run a business that discriminates against people on the basis of things like race or religion, or, increasingly, sexual orientation. Ramirez appears believes that people should be free to run a business that discriminates against certain groups of people based on characteristics like sexual orientation. In fact, she seems to see that as a right. But what about the rights of those who are being discriminated against? Do those not matter too?

Ramirez doesn’t seem to recognize that, at the very least, she’s talking about an area where two groups of people’s rights conflict. Instead, she seems to assume that she’s talking about people’s rights while everyone else is talking about handouts (the right to healthcare) or coercion (LGBTQ rights). Except that they’re not. The actual problem here appears to be that Ramirez disagrees with many other Millennials on what rights people should have, but that’s not at all the story Ramirez thinks she’s covering.

5. Constitutional Conservatism Means Equal Protection Under the Law For ALL Americans.

We don’t hate minorities. We hate discrimination.

And separating out which lives are more important than others IS discrimination. We hate that we don’t—as a nation—look at all lives as equal, and equally deserving of attention, of help—of justice. When we look at the biological skin color as opposed to the living, breathing human being, don’t we devalue that person by making them nothing more than one of many?

Here, let me translate that for you:

We don’t hate minorities. We just hate programs and initiatives that focus on helping minorities, because we shouldn’t see skin color. All Lives Matter. 

I’ll get back to her on that when people of color cease to be overrepresented in prison and underrepresented among college faculty, and when people of color are no longer racially profiled by the police (and basically everyone else). Race-based problems can’t be fixed without race-based solutions.

Ramirez finishes with this:

Let’s get back to the original question: If you couldn’t wait to get out from under your parents’ thumbs—what makes you think being under the government’s thumb (in exchange for a bunch of seemingly free stuff and social reengineering) is any better?

You see, with government calling the shots—from healthcare to education to religion—you get as much freedom as the government TODAY determines you can have.

See how much you’d have to give up?

By now it’s pretty clear that by “free stuff” Ramirez is talking about things like government-run healthcare or tuition-free state colleges. By “social engineering,” she appears to mean gay marriage and anti-discrimination ordinances. Someone may want to point out to her that Millennials by and large see this sort of “social engineering” as a good thing and as a positive step toward protecting all American’s rights. Actually, strike that, most Millennials don’t see gay marriage or anti-discrimination ordinances as “social engineering” to begin with. Instead, they see them as efforts to guarantee people’s rights, which is exactly what Ramirez thinks constitutional conservatism is all about. See also my comments above on this being a conflict not between having rights or giving up your freedoms but rather between what sorts of rights people should have.

Still, at long last, Ramirez answers a question I’ve had from the beginning of the piece—what are these freedoms we will allegedly have to give up? She again speaks of people being “under the government’s thumb,” but this time she gives information on what she means by that when she references “government calling the shots—from healthcare to education to religion.” Let’s unpack that.

First let’s talk about healthcare. Remember when private health insurance companies would kick people off when they got sick, claiming it was a preexisting condition or some such? The entire reason Congress passed the ACA was to make the health insurance marketplace more fair for the consumer. In other words, the government stepped in to take us out from under the thumb of private insurers. Ramirez acts like the choice is one between being under the government’s thumb and being free. It’s not. Finally, while it’s true that a fully single-payer system might mean sacrificing some freedom of choice, it would also mean having the right to a basic level of healthcare—a right we currently do not have.

As for education, it’s unclear here whether Ramirez is talking about public schools or whether she’s talking about the idea of tuition-free state colleges. I know quite a number of constitutional conservatives who are against public schools entirely, because they believe the government has no authority to be involved in education. The problem is that without public schools and compulsory attendance laws, children do not have a right to an education. If Ramirez is talking about tuition-free state colleges, on the other hand, I’m at a loss to know what she means when referencing “government calling the shots.” Perhaps there would be no state colleges in Ramirez’s ideal world, only private colleges? If so, someone needs to remind her how much more expensive private colleges are. She’s not going to make much headway with Millennials on this one.

What about religion? I’m scratching my head and I’m having trouble figuring out what she means by the government calling the shots on religion. I assume she’s talking about marriage equality, but again, the sort of marriage we’re talking about in that case is the legal contract instituted by the government. No one is forcing churches to perform marriages for same-sex couples. She could also be talking about the birth control mandate, which would have required religious institutions opposed to birth control to provide their employees with health insurance plans that cover birth control, but that’s an issue of their employees’ rights, so again, at the very least it’s two groups’ rights coming in conflict. Perhaps she means requiring private businesses to provide services for gay couples? That has less to do with religion than it does with the government forbidding private businesses from discriminating on the bases of various characteristics—and again, you at the very least have a conflict between two sets of rights, and a disagreement over what rights people do or do not have.

Finally, Ramirez states that “you get as much freedom as the government TODAY determines you have.” But isn’t that how it always is? It’s not like having a Constitution has stopped the federal government from turning a blind eye to slavery or Jim Crow, and it’s not like women have always had the right to vote. Don’t get me wrong, it’s scary to watch as your rights are eroded—here I speak particularly of reproductive rights. But I’d much rather trust to the good will of my fellow citizens in the present and future than go back to having the rights people had in the era of the founding fathers. I like existing as my own legal person, being able to say “no” to sex with my husband if I’m not in the mood, and being able to vote, thank you very much.

As I look again at her last line—“See how much you’d have to give up?”—I’m still at a loss. What do I give up, exactly? Single-payer healthcare may limit some of my choice, but it would also mean not being at the whim of health insurance companies and having access to healthcare without fear of going broke. As for tuition-free college, gay marriage, or LGBTQ anti-discrimination ordinances, what am I giving up, exactly? What freedoms am I losing? The only thing I can see giving up should Bernie’s proposals become law is more of my income in taxes, and that might be worth it if the new government programs saved me money and improved our economy and society.

In full disclosure, I’m actually not planning to vote for Bernie in the primary. I tend to be skeptical of grandiose promises in our current political climate, and yet I still found Ramirez’ article entirely unconvincing. And perhaps that is part of the problem—she seeks to contrast Bernie’s proposals with her own constitutional conservatism with little reference to anything between the two—for instance, improving the ACA but not creating a single-payer system, or reducing state college tuition without eliminating it. Ramirez appears to inhabit a black and white world where government itself is an invasion of people’s rights. What she’s missing is that while government absolutely can violate people’s rights, it can also protect these rights and promote their wellbeing.

If this is the best constitutional conservatism has to offer Millennials—both those supporting Bernie and beyond—its supporters are in for a rude awakening. It’s not that we don’t care about rights and freedoms, it’s just that we disagree on what rights and freedoms we should have and that we don’t think constitutional conservatism is the best guarantee of those rights and freedoms. You know. Little details like that.

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