Wednesday, March 11, 2020 // The Statement
6B

A

t events across the country, 
from Iowa to Arkansas to 
Nevada to California, Sen. Eliz-

abeth Warren, D-Mass., ends each night 
by taking a selfie with every person who 
wants one, often snapping hundreds of 
photos — which, including a moment to 
talk to each supporter, runs for several 
hours. Each time a little girl reaches the 
front of the line and walks up to take her 
selfie, Warren bends down and says, “My 
name is Elizabeth, and I’m running for 
president because that’s what girls do,” 
then offers her pinkie so they’ll promise to 
remember it.

When asked about these now-famous 

pinkie promises, Sen. Warren recalls her 
first run for the United States Senate: 
People encouraged her to run, but admit-
ted they thought it was unlikely a woman 
could win against a male incumbent. Feel-
ing frustrated with sexist remarks about 
her hair and her clothes and her voice, she 
began making these pinkie promises with 
little girls. She said, “It matters a lot to me 
that little girls see themselves as future 
presidents of the United States.” 

Every time I see a picture of War-

ren down on one knee, pinkie promising 
another young girl that running for presi-
dent is what girls do, I feel a combination 
of affection, tenderness and I’ll admit, a 
bit of jealousy. How I wish I could be one 
of those little girls, intertwining my pin-
kie and promising to do what girls do with 
Elizabeth Warren. 

My first memory of an American presi-

dential campaign is from when I was 

about their age. It must have been early 
June 2008 because then-Sen. Barack 
Obama, D-Ill., had just secured a major-
ity of delegates to become the nominee. 
In the spring and summer of that year, I 
would have been about to turn 10 years 
old. I remember sitting in our living room 
while one of my parents was watching 
cable news, which, by that point, was plas-
tered with coverage of the Democratic 
primary. Though I knew little about the 
candidates or their policies at the time, 
I can still recall the visceral anger I felt, 
red hot right in my belly, when someone 
explained that this meant Hillary Clinton 
would not be president. 

I wasn’t old enough to know anything 

about the policy differences between 
Obama and Clinton, and I was sheltered 
enough that I didn’t realize that Obama’s 
nomination was also historic and what it 
would mean to a lot of people — includ-
ing me. Down the line, I could understand 
how important Obama’s presidency was 
for the forward progress of our country 
and how his legislative accomplishments 
would directly affect my life (by expand-
ing healthcare to millions of Americans, 
banning insurance companies from deny-
ing coverage to those with preexisting 
conditions and allowing young people to 
stay on their parent’s health insurance 
until 26, he personally improved my life as 
a person with a chronic illness). All I knew 
then was that it really, really mattered to 
me to see someone like me gain the con-
fidence of the nation and ultimately stand 
on the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol, 

right hand raised, swearing 
an oath to the Constitution 
and becoming the President 
of the United States. 

My anger then may have 

been a little misguided, but 
the place it came from wasn’t 
wrong. Look where we are 
now: It’s 12 years later and 
the two front-runners in the 
2020 Democratic primary 
are two rich, heterosexual, 
able-bodied white men in 
their 70s, to say nothing 
of the traumatic, decisive 
misogyny that was rampant 
in the 2016 election. 

At 21 years of age, I’ve 

only ever voted for a woman 
for president of the United 
States. It meant so incred-
ibly much to me, and to mil-
lions of young women across 
the country, to cast my first-
ever vote for president for a 
woman candidate — not just 
because she is a woman but 

because she was an incredibly 

qualified, smart and passionate nominee. I 
imagine it felt similar to how Black people 
felt casting their vote for Obama for presi-
dent or how LGBTQIA+ Americans felt 
casting their vote for former-South Bend 
Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the first openly-gay 
presidential candidate.

The 2020 Democratic primary began as 

the most diverse field of candidates to run 
for president ever, which was made possi-
ble, in part, by both Obama’s and Clinton’s 
candidacies. We had Kamala and Julián 
and Cory and Amy and Kristen and Eliza-
beth and Pete and Andrew. For the most 
part, it wasn’t just tokenism — there were 
multiple candidates of color and multiple 
women filling various different ideologi-
cal lanes. Of course, Buttigieg was the 
lone gay candidate, but it seems likely his 
historic candidacy will open the doors for 
many after him. 

Now, though, the field has been whit-

tled down to two candidates who offer the 
least diversity and hold identities with the 
most social power and privilege. We can 
and do talk about their policy positions or 
their experience or their age or their abil-
ity to do the job, but for just a moment, we 
should reflect on the candidates them-
selves, particularly their identities. 

Of course, all Democrats want to beat 

Donald Trump in November, but when the 
conversation about how to win revolves 
around how to appeal to some imaginary 
white male conservative voter in Wiscon-
sin, this framing of electability — which is 
based on the same biases that elected the 
first 44 white male American presidents 

— has deeply hurt every candidate who is 
not white and not male. It is profoundly 
disappointing and frankly disheartening 
to see so many people retreat to their com-
fort candidate — i.e., a heterosexual, white 
male — when things get tough. It indicates 
the weakness of so-called allyship and 
demonstrates an easy willingness to aban-
don non-white, non-male, non-hetero-
sexual candidates when it comes down to 
the wire. It is not the progressivism we’ve 
been promised. 

When making the argument for a 

woman candidate, a woman of color can-
didate, a gay candidate and so on, many 
will toss accusations of playing identity 
politics (something that somehow only 
applies to people who aren’t heterosex-
ual white men). If you support a woman 
candidate and like the fact that she’s a 
woman, other candidates’ supporters will 
call you a “vagina voter”. To some, it is 
unimaginable that anyone identifying as 
female might be capable of making a ratio-
nal choice, even when it results in choos-
ing someone who looks like them, and that 
holding a marginalized identity might 
actually be a valuable quality when run-
ning on a platform of working for those 
who have been left behind by the status 
quo.

In my case, my support for Elizabeth 

Warren in the primary was not based 
on the fact that she’s a woman (though it 
wouldn’t be bad if it was!). While I see the 
fact that she’s a woman as an incredible 
bonus, I supported her primarily based on 
the fact that she committed to getting rid 
of the Senate filibuster, something which 
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has and says he 
will not. The filibuster requires 60 votes, 
which the Democrats don’t have, to pass 
any form of universal healthcare. As a 
chronically-ill person in desperate need 
of accessible healthcare, I want the candi-
date who not only has the best policy, but 
also the best plan to get it passed. 

Alternatively, others will accuse you 

of prioritizing representation instead 
of actual progress. Beside perpetuat-
ing a foolish brand of tokenism, this idea 
that increased representation — having 
women, people of color, disabled people, 
indigenous people and queer people at the 
table making decisions — doesn’t matter is 
simply wrong, for two major reasons. 

Marisa Wright is a junior in LSA study-

ing Political Science and Women’s Studies 
and is a Statement Deputy Editor. She can 
be reached at marisadw@umich.edu.

ILLUSTRATION BY TAYLOR SCHOTT 

Read more at 
 
MichiganDaily.com

Extremely white and incredibly male

BY MARISA WRIGHT, DEPUTY STATEMENT EDITOR

