Deval Patrick’s decision to join the race late looks to me like an expression of determination that I share. Patrick, a two-term governor of Massachusetts, understands American politics, which is to say, he understands the necessity of practical, non-ideological, political leadership. I think Governor Patrick, Senator Warren, and even Governor Weld are determined to take this sober and mature approach national in 2020. I’ve often been asked why so many Massachusetts politicians run for president and one of the reasons is that Bay State politics breeds a particular type of political skill and political realism better than almost anywhere else. In Massachusetts politics, rigid ideologues, moral scolds, and partisan demagogues go nowhere. Self-righteous disdain for transactional politics is no less pronounced or prominent in the Bay State’s day-to-day political media narrative, but it is, nonetheless, muted in the state’s election returns and in the results of the public policy making process on Beacon Hill.
The present moment in American politics is indeed dire and precarious. The almost instinctual effort to counsel moderation and cooler heads all around is confounded by the indisputably asymmetrical nature of our polarized politics. In 2020, the reality that the Republican Party has degenerated into a hopelessly corrupt cult of personality that has nonetheless managed to win control of the White House and maintain a U.S. Senate majority has understandably sparked the passions of progressive activists determined to fight hypocrisy and dishonesty with rigid ideological consistency and brutal honesty. America’s democratic political system, however, is not designed for this type of confrontation. It is designed for politics, which is to say, interest-based negotiation and bargaining before, during, and after elections. This design was, in fact, inspired by the Massachusetts example. America’s constitutional framers used the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 as their template and over the course of our nation’s history Massachusetts politicians have felt particularly well suited to national leadership.
In 2019, Massachusetts politics offers a stark contrast to American politics. On Capitol Hill, lies fight truth to an ugly stalemate daily, while on Beacon Hill, the echoes of trumpism are relegated to the impotent ravings of a Republican Party Chairman who is even ignored by the Republican Governor. In Washington, partisan gridlock and gamesmanship prevail. In Boston, despite a veto-proof Democratic majority in the state House and Senate, a Republican governor and Democratic legislature bargain and negotiate productively and without mutual disdain or disrespect.
The qualification of Massachusetts politicians for national leadership is not moderation. It is political maturity and respect for the transactional politics required by the design of our constitutional democracy. Deval Patrick and Elizabeth Warren are bona fide progressives, but they are progressive politicians, not progressive activists or ideologues or revolutionaries. Patrick’s late entry into the race reflects concern that Senator Warren has been pushed too far in the direction of progressive activism and away from progressive politics. Because Bernie Sanders’ and his supporters represent a very significant, though minority, faction in the Democratic Party, his 2020 candidacy is making it very difficult for the Democratic Party to step into the breach and to offer genuinely restorative national political leadership, something desperately needed in the wake of the moral and intellectual implosion of the Republican Party.
Deval Patrick and Elizabeth Warren are exactly the kind of progressive politicians America desperately needs right now. They have already proven themselves willing and able to provide the kind of political leadership required in a pluralistic democratic polity. Their critics, right and left, both the well-intended and the ill-intended, are temperamentally unfit for the kind of political leadership America needs right now, the kind of political leadership long required for success in Massachusetts politics.