Sanders is from Minnesota, Clinton is from New York

A while back I had a teacher who described two different versions of socialism: Minnesota and New York socialism. He gave them the different names because of the two states he had gone to school in (Columbia and the University of Minnesota). Despite the name socialism, the theory is just how different groups see social redistribution and social insurance programs. It has nothing to do with real socialism or the seizure of the means of production. I find this system works fairly well to describe the Democratic Party's division between Clinton and Sanders and how the 2016 Democratic campaign is working itself out.

Minnesota socialism comes from a place where people look like each other, have similar names, come from the same parts of Europe, and in the words of Garrison Keillor "where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." In Minnesota you'll find little diversity outside of the Twin Cities. People are white, talk in Midwestern accents, and cheer for the Vikings. Because of these similarities, it is easy to see yourself in other people. Someone's tragic accident could be your tragic accident. You realize that social insurance programs are important because they help protect people like you.

Sanders is a Minnesota socialist. He comes from Vermont where, let's be honest, there's not much diversity. His programs are not targeted, but general. It is a social ideology built out of seeing people who look like you suffer from illness, a lack of education, bad banking policy terrible wars abroad, etc. The problems that Sanders sees affect all people, and these are the issues that he is the most passionate about. I personally come from Minnesota, so this way of looking at the world has been fairly easy for me to understand and support.

Meanwhile there is another brand of socialism my teacher called New York socialism which is best shown through a piece in the Atlantic by Ta-Nehisi Coates. In it, he argues not for general programs or a general redistribution, but rather a targeted set of programs aimed at a specific group. In this case, the call is for 34 billion dollars worth of programs targeting the black community. In his recent words about Sanders:

"There is no need to be theoretical about this. Across Europe, the kind of robust welfare state Sanders supports—higher minimum wage, single-payer health-care, low-cost higher education—has been embraced. Have these policies vanquished racism? Or has race become another rubric for asserting who should benefit from the state’s largesse and who should not? And if class-based policy alone is insufficient to banish racism in Europe, why would it prove to be sufficient in a country founded on white supremacy? And if it is not sufficient, what does it mean that even on the left wing of the Democratic party, the consideration of radical, directly anti-racist solutions has disappeared?"

The idea is that general programs cannot work for specific problems. It's the argument against the phrase "All Lives Matter." If someone's house is on fire, one does not dump water on every house. No, you dump water on the house that is burning to the ground.

New York socialism does not come from a world where every looks the same, acts the same, and has last names like Ericson, Olson, Peterson, and Danielson. New York is a tapestry of cultures, people, and experiences. If Minnesota is static, New York is vibrant and changing. Different groups have different interests, and often it becomes a fight between one group and another. Ironically enough, this is also how Republicans see social welfare - as a fight between different groups trying to take money from one another.

Clinton, in this race, is the New York socialist. Now, this may be a stretch, but at this point I am trying to understand what goes in in the minds of black voters instead of telling them they are wrong. The best article on this subject was a recent article in the New York times called "Stop Bernie-Splaining to Black Voters"  by Charles Blow. The love of Clinton comes not from a complete acceptance of the New York socialist mentality expressed by Coates, but rather a calculated view of who can get them more. They look at Clinton and Sanders and see Clinton as more electable and more shrewd in getting what she wants. Blow writes: "For many there isn’t much passion for either candidate. Instead, black folks are trying to keep their feet planted in reality and choose from among politicians who have historically promised much and delivered little." I have seen the Facebook posts by Sanders fans saying that he is more electable, but I too am not swayed. I watch Sanders, and in my gut too I can feel that saying the word socialist is just a bad thing to do on the campaign trail.

This election will be a battle between Minnesota and New York socialist views on the world. Right now, it looks like Clinton will win because she appeals not to the imagination, but the realities of voters that could see Trump put up his name on the White House.

Clinton recently won the South Carolina primary by a landslide by dominating the African American vote. I'm sure there's a large number of reasons why this happened, but most are connected to the difference between Minnesota and New York socialists and how they view the world.