America Needs a Radical Liberal Presidency in 2020

Natalia Hernandez
Contributing Writer

Nowadays in politics, the mere sight or sound of the word “radical” can make some people cringe despite their ideological stance. If you’re a right-wing conservative, you’re more likely to take a cheap shot at liberals by calling them left-wing radicals in attempts to scorn ideas like universal health care. 

If you’re a left-wing liberal, you’ll classify radical conservatives as the villains who refuse to implement stricter gun policies to address the gun violence epidemic. Either way, attaching the word “radical” to an ideology has become a popular mechanism to discredit a public official in our current political environment. 

Democratic voters have a reason to be afraid going into the 2020 election, but not for reasons that immediately come to mind; aka the president that currently inhabits the Oval Office. Voters are currently worried about their choices in the Democratic field. Who has what it takes to beat Trump? Can a radical liberal get the job done?  

Trump’s 2016 election win killed off any chance for a moderate Democrat to win in 2020. Hillary Clinton was arguably considered a moderate Democrat despite her progressive agenda. 

Despite Russian meddling, James Comey’s investigation a week before the election, and any other scandal she is somehow tied to, voters have always been on the fence about the former secretary of state. These were warning signs that should make us question the effectiveness of using a moderate political strategy to defeat Trump.

There’s no debate here. As American voters, we know that a radical can win the presidency because one already did. Trump has been our “four-year free trial” of a radical conservative version of a presidency and will hopefully expire soon. 

American voters need an executive who’s going to open the door for the liberal ideas that have been knocking on the door for the past decade. A radical democrat will win in 2020, it’s just a question of which one will take down Trump: Sanders or Warren? 

Thirty years ago, the concept of radical liberalism was a laughingstock amongst congressional leadership. Most notably, in the ’90s, the biggest disputed policy was Hillarycare which was a plan that was aimed towards universal healthcare coverage. 

The 2016 presidential election was the wake-up call Americans needed to realize that radical liberalism is the answer and we need it more than ever. This set the stage for the 2020 Democratic campaign trail and has shaped it into the most diverse race any generation has ever seen. 

Leading this new democratic era of radicals is most notably Bernie Sanders. Despite his failure in the 2016 presidential campaign, the groundwork he laid for the 2020 democratic platform made moderate democratic values seem like an outdated joke. Sorry, Joe. 

Bernie made young voters hungry for a fresh agenda that is oriented towards the problems our generation has to live with: climate change, the impact of pharmaceutical corporations, student debt, universal health care, and taking down the big banks on Wall Street. 

The 2020 presidential race has had many highs and lows, but one thing for sure is that voters definitely have the pick of the litter in terms of ideological differences. 

It has surfaced diverse liberal agendas from candidates like Corey Booker, Julian Castro, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttiegeg, Andrew Yang, and Elizabeth Warren who have all notably advanced progressive values and policies on the campaign trail and in their past congressional experience. 

The shift away from moderate Democratic values has left Joe Biden losing support and Amy Klobuchar almost dead in the water with less than a month away from the primary. 

The big three on the Democratic ticket right now (Biden, Warren, and Sanders) are certainly examples of Democratic heterogeneity. Excluding Biden, Warren and Sanders are the most radical liberals that voters could ask for. 

America needs the radical liberal version of a presidency in 2020. We have two candidates that can provide us with such. We can only hope that Americans will put their trust in the right radical candidate in November.