MLK’s Warning to Today’s Liberal Elite
I am going to begin my articles from now on with a new section called: “For my wife…” She gets the fire hydrant of me all the time and reading an overly wordy essay is not what she calls a good time. Consider it a tl;dr.
For my wife…
I used to believe in the Democratic Party until I witnessed their suppression of Bernie Sanders and experienced firsthand how liberal elites operate through my city council campaign. When these same “progressives” refused to vote for a qualified non-binary candidate while performing symbolic gestures of inclusion, I realized MLK was right: the white moderate’s preference for order over justice makes them a bigger obstacle to progress than obvious opponents. I’m now politically homeless, seeking a moral framework closer to Jesus, Gandhi, and MLK than the Democrats’ empty promises and inaction.
I am moving very swiftly through a major political shift.
I think I can trace my transition beginning in 2016 with Bernie Sanders.
In 2016, internal DNC emails published by WikiLeaks showed some senior DNC officials expressing preferences for Hillary Clinton and discussing ways to disadvantage Sanders’ campaign. This led to the resignation of then-DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
The use of superdelegates in 2016 was criticized as favoring establishment candidates. Many superdelegates declared support for Clinton early in the primary process, which some argued created an impression of inevitability that influenced voters.
It just felt like there was an organic, young movement that supported the ideas of Bernie Sanders. The Democratic establishment wasn’t going to have it.
I felt this again with the Joe Biden debacle in this most recent election. We were denied any real primary process and then we were forced to accept Kamala Harris (although I sensed that I liked her. I didn’t know much about her. But I voted for her and I also liked Tim Walz (his unnecessary negative response to Luigi Mangione has instantly made me disregard him as someone inspiring to get behind). The fact that we have NO ONE who stands against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians is completely heartbreaking and spiritually depleting.
But what really pushed me out of the Democratic hold was the colossal loss in my Akron city council run. I ran in the ward most attributed to the people I thought I was standing with: the liberal elite. I thought they were something other than what they truly are. I thought they seriously cared about people other than their own small circle of people. It turns out that they only theoretically care about a small group of people, and their care only extends to superficial performances that may include (to the most active of them) land acknowledgments and pronoun declarations. The most extreme of them will put a sign in their yard or even march in a protest (though most would consider that act too radical and risky).
You might respond by saying, “Sage, don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think you would be able to work in a compromising, professional environment like city council.”
I heard that every once in a while as I knocked on thousands of doors, trying to win that election. But then tell me why you also didn’t vote for Fran Wilson?
Fran is a non-binary young person who is so low-key, rational, thoughtful, and good. They are such a truly good person. And yet you somehow saw your way to not voting him in, at the height of the LGBTQ+ movement.
Sure. Don’t vote for me. You think you know who I am and how I’ll act (never mind the fact that I’ve worked in some of the biggest companies in the country as a marketing consultant. You have no understanding of my ability to work in massive systems in organizations far bigger than the annual gross income of the City of Akron.) But how do you explain your decision not to vote for Fran Wilson?
Sure, it hurt that I didn’t win that election. However, not voting for Fran Wilson was what truly cut a strong divide between my connections to the Democratic Party.
This local election made me realize that I wasn’t part of the people I thought were my people. And this last presidential election pushed me over the edge. I’m not a Democrat anymore, and I’m not part of the liberal elite. If Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. had a political party, that would be my party. But that is most certainly not the liberals of America. It is not who Democrats are at their core, and I foolishly thought it was. I was so mistaken. It is a reality that has broken my heart.
Before you are tempted to unsubscribe and cancel me from your social dialogue because I make you feel uncomfortable, please read this last thing before you go:
“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
That is the quote from my moral leader. That is the reality of today as much as it was when he wrote it in 1963. That was “Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]”
“More devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.” That is what it means to be a liberal elite Democrat. That is most certainly not me.
I think you like to believe you are on the side of the great moral leaders of the world. But you are not. In fact, you might be the most dangerous force of anti-progress America has ever seen. Your rational, “let’s be realistic” approach to the suffering of Black people, Native Americans, homeless people, drug addicts, the 80,000 people in American prison solitary confinement, the list is nearly endless. It’s not the white supremacists that are the problem. We all know how irrational that stance is. It’s you wealthy, well-dressed, college-educated moderate liberals who are propping up a system of racism, elitism, and oppression of all people who enable you to maintain your way of life. It is YOU who are propagating a system that tortures, neglects, and murders the oppressed of America and the rest of the world. But as long as you get your coffee, shrimp, chocolate, and rare metals for your iPhone 16 at whatever cost is necessary, that’s all that matters.
You never accepted me. You only theoretically and abstractly condoned my behavior as long as it didn’t affect you in any actionable way whatsoever.
You are not me, and I am not you. I am politically homeless.
(Oh, and I have gotten no follow-up whatsoever from the Akron Mayor’s office (mainstream Harvard-educated Democrat) about an emergency safe sleeping space for homeless people. Not even so much as a thank you for coming by. (And yes. I have repeatedly followed up.) It’s all just part of this pseudo-feigned-platitude of fake-care ever present in the moderate liberal do-nothing-for-the-oppressed existence.)