The weirdest thing about the Democratic primary is how un-American it sounds.
For all their differences, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden — the last men standing — both call for a robust expansion of government programs. Mr. Sanders wants “Medicare for all”; Mr. Biden wants a “public option” to compete against private insurance. Both call for a vast increase in Section 8 housing vouchers. Mr. Sanders wants to build 10 million affordable housing units.
So far, the debate around these ideas has focused on the fiscal and political obstacles (Mitch McConnell, ahem). But there’s a bigger problem. Americans have repeatedly rejected expansions of the social safety net because it inevitably collides with one of the most powerful forces shaping the American experience: uncompromising racism.
Racism has forever been a forbidding obstacle to the development of a welfare state, at least of the sort that Europe enjoys and many Americans aspire to. By standing in the way of solidarity, it has produced an exceptional country that accepts without flinching the most extreme wealth alongside deprivation that has no place in the industrialized world.
