The 2020 Democratic primary will serve as a referendum on a whole host of political questions—chief among them the myth of the white male savior.
One of the assumptions stubbornly lodged in our cultural psyche is the belief in male genius, the notion of men destined for a hero’s journey. Women can be hardworking, motivated, enthusiastic—but not brilliant by nature. For children, this assumption forms as early as age 6; according to NYU psychologist Andrei Cimpian, girls rate their male classmates as better suited for activities that demand exceptional talent. This insecurity persists throughout women’s careers. Research in the journal American Psychologist found that women are less likely to apply for jobs when the description requires candidates with “a brilliant mind.” Another recent study, also by Cimpian, found that people associate terms like “genius” and “brilliance” more often with white men, not people of color.
It’s unsurprising that we find it so hard to undo our tightly held belief in white male saviors; it’s a story that gets perpetually reinforced. Harry Potter was anointed, from birth, to slay Lord Voldemort; Hermione Granger may be savvier and more hardworking, but without a messianic birthright, she remains just Harry’s sidekick. From Odysseus to Skywalker, we’ve been raised on tales of men who are reluctant to take on epic journeys but find that they were just born for it.
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The 2020 Democratic primary has thrown a particularly unflattering spotlight on the savior story. Despite early excitement about the Democratic field’s power slate of women, the two candidates whose entrance to the race attracted the most media attention, according to FiveThirtyEight, were both white men: Beto O’Rourke and Bernie Sanders. Both also out-fundraised the other democratic contenders in the 24 hours after they announced. Somehow in an elected that had been billed as the year of the woman, the top three Iowa contenders are all white men. Again, it’s not all that surprising—we retell the stories we’re comfortable with, stories about reluctant males destined to save our country’s soul.
Failed Texas Senate candidate O’Rourke outright said it as he announced that defeat wouldn’t stop him from running for our highest office: “Man, I’m just born to be in it,” he told Vanity Fair. In explaining why he hasn’t prepared his remarks for political rallies, O’Rourke said: “Every word was pulled out of me, like by some greater force.”
Contrast that with Amy Klobuchar, who made her campaign announcement outside, in a 16-degree Minneapolis snowstorm. “I don’t come from money,” Klobuchar told her supporters. “But what I do have is this: I have grit.”
The man runs on his anointment, the woman on her work ethic. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, rising fast in the polls at the moment, has also tapped into a “born for greatness” narrative. He told Politico that when he was in college, Harvard’s newspaper ran a story on students who wanted to be president one day: “Even at that tender age, I had the sense not to comment,” he joked. New polls show him lapping Cory Booker in the Iowa polls, pointing perhaps to the stubbornness of our assumptions on white messiahs.
Because we’re taught to believe white men are born and bred to lead, they’re not held to the same impossibly high standards as powerful women. The history of O’Rourke’s “lost years” shows the level of restless uncertainty we’ll tolerate in a male candidate. Reuters actually held a story about his teenage time spent writing deeply disturbing speculative fiction as a member of an infamous hacking collective until after his Senate race was completed. As he prepared to run for president, the New York Times described his post-college period nannying as he tried to decide how to use his Ivy League degree.
Compare that to the profile of a political leader who hasn’t entered the 2020 race, despite speculation about her presidential prospects: Stacey Abrams.
While 23-year-old O’Rourke was sharing a loft in Brooklyn and searching for a job that would stick, Abrams’ star was already rising: at 19, she addressed the 30th anniversary of the March on Washington, at 20 she delivered the class speech to her peers in the prestigious Harry Truman Scholarship program. In her memoir Minority Leader, Abrams recounts the endless moments that she questioned her own qualifications, often because she saw authority figures doubt her potential. In middle school, she was refused an essay contest prize by an administrator who told her that the winner couldn’t be a woman of color; her freshman year of college, a professor suggested she drop out of physics rather than compete with the boys.
In spite of all the accolades she’s received, rising to Minority Leader of the Georgia House, Abrams’ credentials have been questioned at every turn. Maybe that’s because no one believes that a black woman could be born for positions of power. While they both lost major races in 2018, Abrams paused to consider next steps, while O’Rourke went full-on presidential, which somehow included ditching his family to explore America while writing beat-poet-rhythm Medium posts about his meanderings.
Abrams had every reason to believe in her own leadership but, as she told Reshma Saujani on the podcast “Brave, Not Perfect,” she often wonders whether she’s an imposter; O’Rourke never seems to have questioned his belief he’s destined for bigger things.
Meantime, Joe Biden’s camp encouraged speculation that he’d tap Abrams to fill out his ticket, until Abrams finally dismissed the idea in an appearance this week on The View). In the media’s “will-they-won’t-they” coverage, Biden is‚ as a Vanity Fair profile put it—“inherently likable,” “uncommonly joyful,” and representative of “an old-fashioned ideal.” In other words, Biden—establishment Democrat, longtime Washington insider—checks all the boxes. Abrams, meanwhile, challenges all conventions.
“I’m not normative,” she told The Cut. referencing her race, gender, body type, political approach.
Then again, in a highly non-normative moment, why would we look for the supposedly safest bet? Since Trump’s elections, political norms and precedents have been continually upended; the candidate who evokes old-timey nostalgia isn’t likely to restore the old normal—especially when that old-timey nostalgia in Biden’s case includes hanging a woman of color out to dry to protect a friend of his friends in the boys’ club.
Thirty years later, we’re still socialized to believe that boys are brilliant, while women work hard; that men are born to run, and women should stay behind the scenes. As voters, supporters, and reporters, we reinforce this double standard by heaping media attention and donations on the white males. The stakes of this primary season go beyond policy and personality: it’s about who is born to control power in this country.
As members of the media dismiss female candidates as too opportunistic, or too mean, or too divisive, remember that the underlying reason is more primal—many people don’t think it’s their birthright.
